


Blindfold King

by glenarvon



Series: Blindfold King [1]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Blood and Violence, Drastic Measures Spoilers, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Gore, Season 1 Spoilers, Sex, Spoilers, Suggestive Themes, Swearing, Technobabble, alternate universe elements, reader discretion advised
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 15:57:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13616727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glenarvon/pseuds/glenarvon
Summary: The Buran and her captain go down in fire and blood, and they do not go quietly.





	1. The Terran Hello

**Author's Note:**

> **Updated Introductory Notes 25/March/2018:** I've noticed a lot of questions coming up on the nature of this story and how it qualifies (or not qualifies) as an AU. Because I'm someone who likes to adher very strictly to canon, this story is _obviously_ an AU, but I'm getting the impression it doesn't actually come across as one to a lot of people. I have underestimated the confusion I would cause and I do not wish to mislead anyone reading this story and cause any more disappointment, I prefer to leave that to the professionals.  
>  Therefore, **what this story changes:**  
>  Mirror Lorca comes to the prime universe for a reason and with a plan.  
> The ISS Buran has a spore drive.  
> The ISS Buran has a weapon based on spore technology.  
> The mirror universe's destruction of the mycelial network ties in with the rest of the plot  
> Prime Lorca is a badass (he might well be one in canon, but I do not trust those writers one bit.)  
> There are minor changes to characters and plot necessitated by the above alterations.  
>  **What this story NOT changes:**  
>  The destruction of the USS Buran and the death of the entire crew.  
> Mirror and prime Lorca switching places.  
> Mirror Lorca's overall mindset.
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Author's Note:** I'm pretty sure I'm on record several times on how much I hate AUs and people who don't respect canon, but it turns out Lorca's stupid arc is the straw that broke the camel's back. This diverges massively more from canon than I intended.
> 
> I'm also on record saying things like 'I quit this fandom' and 'I can't fix this'. Yet here we are. Go big or go home, I guess.
> 
> * * *
> 
> The title is a combination (remix?) of two chess terms: 
> 
> Blind(fold) play = a chess game where one or both players can't see the board  
> Bare king = the king is the only piece left to the player

 

Night shift had crested through the Buran like a slow-coming tide, washing the off-duty crew into their quarters, away from their stations and even out of the recreation areas. It was just a short moment, a stillness between heartbeats, because a spaceship wasn't ever truly quiet. It was an hour or two, somewhen between late at night and early in the morning, the sense of alertness dulled to a distant, anxious throbbing. 

The Buran's captain had used the chance to sink some time into the gym, using the relative privacy of this dead hour. It was preferable to wasting more time in the enforced quiet of his quarters and the equally enforced passivity of sleep. He had no plans to run afoul of his CMO, though, so he _was_ going to go to bed and spent the required six hours there, but only after he put through a call to Starfleet.

He was dressed half for the gym and half for bed, barefoot, in shirtsleeves. He knew Starfleet would let it slide and there was an ever so small part of him who enjoyed seeing how far he could push, even in such trivial things.

It took only half a second longer than normal for the hologram to appear in his quarters, with no indication that the commodore had been roused from — at the very least — a comfy nap while he waited for his shift to end. Arbitrary as time might be in space, the commodore was stationed planetside, with a much more solid day-night cycle and he was in the middle of his own dead hour.

 _"Captain Lorca,"_ the commodore greeted him, his expression wavering between worry and annoyance before he got it under control when the view he had of the captain confirmed it wasn't an emergency.

Detailed to patrol a thinly inhabited area of Federation space, the Buran hadn't seen much more than a few Klingon scouts now and then, easily scared off by the ship's superior firepower. There had been a handful of skirmishes, barely enough to scratch the proverbial paint.

There was little here the Klingons would bother to want, a few sparsely populated colonies, a terra-forming project that wasn't getting off the ground and several civilian and mostly automated asteroid mining operations.

The Buran was severely under-utilised, but Lorca had resolved to wait it out. Starfleet would reassess their assets soon enough, when the war continued to go badly. He could use the time to bring his crew around, until they were a true battleship, inside and out, reflexes honed to a killing edge. Lorca made it a point to keep his crew briefed on the exact state of the war, the tally of losses, the number of battles fought and won and lost. Strictly speaking, he wasn't supposed to be as detailed as that, Starfleet's psychologists had determined the rank and file served better with less knowledge. Lorca disagreed. They were adult people, they were _Starfleet_ , they could take the truth. 

"How's the transfer coming along?" the captain asked, striding to his desk and settling with his back against it, calmly studying the commodore.

The commodore very pointedly did not sigh or roll his eyes, maintaining a serious expression, though the glimmer of impatience was hiding just underneath.

 _"There are some… concerns,"_ the commodore said.

The captain arched a questioning eyebrow at his holographic superior.

"Concerns? Commander Basora isn't getting any younger," Lorca said, himself not bothering to hide _his_ impatience with the situation. "Why do I not get a new security chief?"

The commodore bristled just a little at the tone, gathered himself and said. _"You've been forwarded the files of several_ suitable _candidates. May I suggest you take your pick among them?"_

Lorca frowned. "Commander Landry is an exemplary officer, you want her on the Buran."

_"I'm aware of Commander Basora's upcoming retirement, but Commander Landry may not be a good pick for your ship."_

Lorca shook his head. "Why are you even making me fight for this?" he asked, brows drawing together in vague — and entirely feigned — bafflement.

 _"There are concerns her presence could destabilise the crew as a whole,"_ the commodore said. _"Surely crew cohesion is of utmost concern at the moment."_

"Yes, but she'll whip them into shape in no time and they'll thank her later," he pursed his lips as he shook his head. "We don't have a lot of people who would go toe-to-toe with a Klingon, but Landry would." He flashed a brief smile. "Hell, on a good day she puts me on the mat in under ten minutes. So, how's the transfer coming along?"

The commodore took a breath and the unkind lights that composed his image did nothing for the miserable expression he tried hard to hide.

 _"I will consider Commander Landry's posting,"_ the commodore said, hesitated than added, _"You are right, you need a security chief. But if there are problems that arise…"_

"I can handle my crew and I can handle Landry."

 _"That's…"_ the commodore started, finally seemed to run out of patience, tired of hinting at something while the captain on the other end of the conversation played dumb, clearly for his own private amusement.

Sharply, the commodore said, _"Your handling of Landry_ is _the rea—."_

The comm channel shut down without warning, but before Lorca could even draw breath to bark an order at the computer, a vibration started crawling through the soles of his bare feet and upward into his legs and his body, wrapping around his throat like a touch. It took a long moment for him to identify the feeling it caused as dread. He didn't know what this was. He'd grown up on a star-base, he'd spent almost his entire life on a spaceship, but this he'd never experienced.

The Buran shuddered on a molecular level, briefly ripped apart at the baseline of its tangible existence. Then it went dark. The perfect pitch-black of deep space with only the faintest glow of distant stars falling through the windows, not bright enough to illuminate anything at all. The temperature dropped and he felt himself become weightless as the artificial gravity shut down along with everything else.

He reacted on the same instinct he had started drilling into all members of his crew. If he lost touch with the ground entirely he'd be left floating helplessly in the middle of the cabin, doomed to wait out whatever had just happened. He caught hold of the desk behind him, swung himself around it and dropped his fingers on the console controls in the vain hope they would respond. But he could already tell that the ship was entirely dead. No power at all, no life-support, no weapons, no engines. At least the independent emergency containment fields of the warp drive were still fully functioning, if they weren't, it would already be over.

Whatever this was, the Klingons weren't supposed to have technology capable of disabling a starship like this. He pushed off from the console and launched himself to the door of his quarters, found the panel by its side in the dark and disengaged the locking mechanism. He latched onto the door and began to pull hard, enjoying the resistance and using it to release a little bit of tension from his muscles.

The door gave way and slipped open, revealing an even darker corridor beyond. He had time to see the shape of a crew-member close by.

Gravity and light kicked back in, smacked him to the ground and forced him to roll somewhat awkwardly back to his feet, the bright glare stabbing through his eyes and into his brain.

The Buran came back on yellow alert, though the siren had barely washed through before it was already canceled.

He made eye-contact with the crew-member he'd seen, a pretty, young ensign on her hands and knees next to an open toolkit, its contents scattered around the floor.

 _"Attention,"_ came the First Officer's voice over the intercom. _"We've encountered an anomaly which briefly disabled all systems, but we have regained control of the situation. Please return to your stations and continue as normal. A full briefing will be available to you in the morning."_

First Officer Pentawer's voice was thin and papery, no hint of his usual and ever-present deltan amusement. Whatever this was, it was very very wrong and it was far from over.

The young ensign had pulled to her feet and stood to attention, watching him. "Sir," she said, eyes wide and questioning, but not daring to outright ask him what had just happened. Which was just as well, because he would've had to lie to her.

He gave her a quick once-over, determining she had not hurt herself, then nodded curtly and silently, pulling back into his quarters.

"Captain to the bridge," he said as he rounded the desk and sat down. "What's going on?"

 _"Captain you are… needed… on the bridge,"_ Pentawer said, if anything more strained than before. _"Immediately."_

"Number One," Lorca said, stepping away from the console to find his boots. "Report. _Now_."

There was silence, crackling faintly through the open channel. Pentawer took a deep, audible breath. When he spoke again, his tone was exactly the same. It was probably the only reason why he got as far as he did when he said: _"We've been boarded by at least a dozen hostile humans…"_

He fell silent as a short, sharp cry cut through the connection. _"They have just slashed the throat of Lt. van der Merwe. They threatened to kill the entire bridge crew if I told you the truth, as I have just done."_

Lorca had gone perfectly still. It was entirely the wrong thing to do, of course, he should jump into his boots and jacket, take the phaser he kept in his desk. All his drills, but here he was, unable to move.

 _"Captain Lorca,"_ a low voice drawled and a deep frown settled on his face before he even realised why it would. It certainly wasn't Pentawer who'd spoken, no one of the crew. It was a voice far more familiar than that.

Lorca recognised the tone immediately, the sneering smug arrogance of it. There was nothing to be done against it, both silence and screaming rage would just fan it on.

The too-familiar voice continued, _"I know what you're thinking. Think again. We've taken your bridge crew hostage, two are already dead. It will be only a few minutes before we control all of your ship. I suggest you get up here and surrender in person."_

There was something here he couldn't quite grasp yet, just sensed its shape in the dark, waiting for him to be mapped completely.

"Would you?" he asked, matching the other's tone on the first try. "In my place?"

The man on the other end laughed. _"Do you believe in destiny?"_

"I believe in making my own."

_"What about your… precious… crew?"_

Past the lump in his throat, Lorca forced the same sneer into his voice, "Just a hint, if you want something, you've got to offer something. You should've offered me my _precious_ crew's lives."

The other man just laughed. _"I'm a patient man, I can wait for you to come around. Your crew… not so much. Every five minutes, one of them dies, until you're here and on your knees."_

The connection was cut without preamble, plunging the quarters into a deafening silence, but Lorca knew better than to indulge in it.

"Captain to Basora, where are you?"

 _"Barricaded in the armoury, sir,"_ came Basora's gruff voice almost immediately. _"I don't know what's going on, but I'm damned if I let a bunch of pirates get the better of me this late in the game."_

These weren't pirates, as much Lorca knew with certainty. Pirates weren't capable of this, they lacked the technology and the guts to take on a Starfleet ship. Besides, the man on the bridge… Lorca pushed the thought firmly aside, he'd deal with him once he got there.

"What's our status?"

Basora snorted derisively. _"We're in the process of being overtaken, sir. I've got reports coming in from all decks about intruders. I don't have an exact count, internal scanners never came back right."_

Lorca nodded to himself, finished with the boots and jacket, pausing for just a moment to gather his thoughts and let the scenario run through his head. Not pirates, to be sure, but human enemies nonetheless, wielding a weapon they had never encountered before, under the command of someone who spoke with his own voice. He didn't waste time on telling himself it didn't make sense, because that didn't matter. It was happening. Given the limited information, it was impossible to guess the intruders' goals or even just their next step, other than the most obvious. They wanted something and they weren't shy about executing every member of his crew one by one to get it. Still, if there was something he _had_ and the other needed, that could be a sorely needed edge.

"Basora," Lorca said. "How secure is the armoury?"

 _"Good enough,"_ Basora said. _"Got five officers with me and it's a defensible position."_

"How many hostiles?"

 _"Sir, I have no bloody idea,"_ Basora growled. _"They're like rats, everywhere. Four dozen at least, heavily armed and not afraid to use it."_

"Got any good news?"

 _"That depends on your definition,"_ Basora snorted. _"Internal and external sensors are completely out of whack, same goes for communications. I can't reach engineering but sickbay is up and running. I dispatched security there to keep it under control. Looks like the software failsafe got triggered, so the sensitive systems compartmentalised themselves."_

Which meant the ship's internal defenses couldn't easily be turned against her own crew. It _was_ good news, after a fashion. This way, whoever was trying to take over the ship would have to fight for every shred of it, one painful step at the time and buying Lorca and Basora time to organise.

Pentawer must have triggered the failsafe, realising what was going on in that first, confusing second of the invasion. He'd pay a price, just as he would for warning Lorca, but everything worthwhile had one.

"I want organised resistance, guerrilla tactics, hit them hard and get out of dodge," Lorca said, stepping to his door, just outside the radius of its sensors. "Set phasers to…" he stopped, examined the order he was about to give. "… stun, but if in doubt, kill. You're in charge, get them off my ship I don't care in what shape. Keep communications to a minimum, let's not help them out."

 _"Understood,"_ Basora said, giving no indication the sinister implications of the order surprised him at all. Good man. _"Sir, what are you going to do?"_

Lorca tilted his head, almost bemused by the question. "I'm needed on the bridge," he said and stepped forward. The door hissed open for him, as if on cue, the lights in the corridor flickered out only to come back dimmed.

* * *

The time since the interruption of his conversation with Starfleet Command until Lorca left his quarters could be counted in minutes, but what had been a brightly-lit, well-kept starship corridor had been recast as a battlefield. Just as he left, two humans came into view along the bent of the corridor, dressed in warlike, gleaming breastplates and black leather. They hoisted rifles, the make of which Lorca had no time to identify before the first, searing shot punched in violent brightness into the floor by his feet. 

One of the men snarled at the other, too guttural and low for Lorca to understand and the other snapped back. Some argument Lorca had no intention of giving them a chance to finish. He wasn't sure if their body armour would deflect a phaser blast, but their heads were unprotected. Even on stun, at this range a phaser to the head would be unpleasant, to say the least. They crumpled in two, leather-clad heaps.

Listening for a moment for any other attackers, Lorca strode over and put the tip of his boot to the shoulder of the unconscious man on top, gave him a shove to make him roll on his back. The chest-plate seemed to be metal of some kind, probably with deflective coating, if it was meant to do anything but look good.

"Oh god, shit," a female voice said from behind.

He glanced over his shoulder and spotted the ensign he'd seen earlier, coming around the bent from the other side. She held a length of metal in her hand, one of the tools from the box she'd carried. It was smeared with fresh blood and she looked wild. His eyebrow twitched upward.

"Fuck… I mean… I'm sorry, sir, I…" she stopped babbling, forced a deep breath into her lungs and visibly braced herself. "What is going on, sir?"

She exhaled, gaze flitting away from him and at the two downed intruders.

"We're being boarded," Lorca said and turned away from her to bent over the unconscious men and pick up one of their rifles.

"But that's not Klingons."

"No," he hefted the enemy gun, tried it for weight and balance. It was shorter than a standard issue phaser rifle, more like a carbine with a foreward grip for faster handling. There was no obvious way to change its power-setting, but also no biometric lock that would deny him its usage. Sloppy that. Lowering the rifle for a moment, he pulled out his phaser again, looked at the ensign and said, "Catch." as he tossed her the phaser, observing her reaction time. By the looks of it, she'd already used that tool to disable an attacker in a way that made them unable to pursue her, so at least some of his drills were paying off.

She managed to catch the phaser, although awkwardly clutching it to her chest with both hands, tangling the tool with her limbs before she re-arranged herself, ditched the tool and got the phaser ready.

"Keep it on stun for now," he told her, though it was hardly the question she herself was asking.

It was a long way from deck 5 to the bridge. The turbolift was out of the questions, too easy to be trapped in one and probably non-functional anyway. The intruders might have taken the bridge, but they were hardly in control. Lorca had every intention of cashing in on the advantage while it lasted.

The intruders certainly hadn't got control of the transporter, Lorca thought as he found his way to the nearest access ladder, otherwise whoever was taking such a personal interest in Lorca's presence on the bridge — voluntarily or otherwise — would've already beamed him there.

The short moments it took until they reached the next deck and into the comparative safety of the Jeffries tube, Lorca reviewed what he knew about the enemy. A hull breach was unlikely, ship systems would've picked it up on the first touch and given them at least a warning long before anyone reached the bridge or spread through the ship. They must've been beamed aboard, so they had to have a ship of their own within transporter range. The Klingons certainly had that with their cloaks, but the explanation snagged on the irritating fact that these intruders _were not Klingons._ And they were not pirates, either, no matter how likely Basora found that explanation. Some rogue fraction of humans within the Federation? Or even within Starfleet? One a starship captain had never been informed of? Unlikely, that.

The rough noises of fights ahead dragged his attention back into the present sharply. He listened for a moment, then swung himself up onto the deck, crouching down as he oriented himself and honed in on where the fighting was coming from.

Deck 4 had no crew quarters, but it had the upper access door to the engineering section and by the sound of it, a group of intruders was currently trying to force their way in. Not the smartest thing to do, this close to delicate machinery, deuterium tanks and plasma chambers. Closed bulkheads sealed off access to the rest of the deck, though one of them stood wide open, just next to the doors to engineering.

Lorca motioned for the ensign to be quiet and stay behind him as he edged forward, back pressed against the wall of the corridor. By then, the fight was over. The intruders had overwhelmed and killed two security guards, dumped them unceremoniously while they took positions around the shuttered door. They wore the same uniforms the two outside the Captain's Quarters had, dark fabric, leather-like, and gleaming breastplates, each armed with a rifle, knives strapped to their thighs and in their boots. As he watched, a slim woman stepped forward and went to work on the console by the door. The lock chirped in denial as it refused her access.

The ensign behind Lorca fidgeted, though she stilled immediately when he gave her a sharp look. He understood her agitation. Due to the bent of the corridor, she couldn't see what was going on and had no way to judge the severity of the situation for herself. She needed to remember that he was perfectly capable of doing that for her. Her nerves would just give them away before he was ready.

Up ahead, the woman called the bridge, "It's not working," she complained.

 _"How about I'll just give you the captain and you complain directly?"_ a new, male voice asked, sounding no less petulant than the woman had. _"It's his masterplan, except his voice print isn't working."_

The woman snorted derisively. "Can't you override it?"

 _"So nope,"_ the man declared in a mocking singsong. _"And before you get any ideas, you're right next to the plasma chambers. Don't blow that door,_ please _."_

Still hidden, Lorca arched his brows in silent agreement. Emergency containment systems should be still functioning, but he'd rather not find out if that was true, faced with an unknown technology in the hands of an unknown attacker as they were.

"What do you want me to do now?"

 _"Hmm, I don't know. Maaaaybe apply some patience,"_ the man on the other end said. _"If you use your phaser rifle, hack its settings to low and then take your time, you should be able to cut through the door without blowing us all up."_

"How long's that gonna take?"

_"Couple hours, nothing we don't have, because otherwise we won't be going home at all. I suggest you get to it."_

The woman gave the wall by the panel a frustrated punch, then turned away, giving Lorca the first good look at her face. He was already holding himself perfectly still, but his racing mind stopped mid-track, too. He recognised her.

Ellen Landry?

He'd been pushing speculation on the nature of their attackers to the back of his mind, everything that wouldn't serve him in the here and now. But this was _now._ And Landry wasn't here. He'd spoken to her just this morning, when she complained about her transfer to the Buran being stone-walled. So this was not Landry, at least not the one he knew. Just like the too-familiar voice of the man on the bridge. _One_ of these could be just a coincidence, but a double of Ellen Landry, too?

Obvious answer was clones. Most security systems were coded to DNA and biometrics, voice commands and retina scans. The clone of a Starfleet captain would have access to a plethora of sensitive information, invaluable especially in the middle of a war. It was the theory he had, latently, subscribed to so far. It made sense to take out the original if you wanted your replacement's cover to last, though this type of full-scale attack seemed counter-intuitive. It'd be far easier to catch him off guard during shore-leave, or even on a Starbase, anywhere but his own ship. He wasn't sure what they needed Landry for, either. Though, just because a plan was bad didn't mean it wouldn't ever be put into action.

He edged back carefully, jostling the ensign.

"Captain?" she whispered, picking up on his darkening mood.

He motioned her further back, then said, "It's five hostiles, four males, one female, all armed with rifles, armoured like the ones we've already seen. We've got time to stun two before the others are on us, and that's guessing they don't just open fire." He hesitated, thinking it through. "They don't want to kill me quite as badly as they should, so I'll take point and you stick behind me. The woman is in charge, wait for my signal and go for her first, I got some questions I need answered."

He was about to turn away, when the ensign sucked in a quick breath and opened her mouth, not saying anything for a moment.

"Uh," she finally managed. "What signal, sir?"

He shrugged and hefted the rifle. "I'll surrender, then you'll open fire and I'll knock out whoever's still up after that."

He gave her no time to second-guess his order or question her capabilities. There was no guarantee he'd read their reaction correctly. The imposter on the bridge clearly wanted him alive, but these people seemed entirely too trigger-happy to find that particularly reassuring.

Lorca squared his shoulder and strode into the corridor, observing the humans ahead of him notice his presence, though by then they were already looking down the barrel of the phaser rifle he'd taken from one of their own.

"What the fuck are you doing on my ship?" Lorca demanded.

The humans' reaction time was far superior to anything Lorca had managed to drill into his non-combatant crew so far, he had to give them that. No hesitation, no delay as they had to go through the second of surprise at him there, at the momentary confusion at his — most likely — familiar face and voice. Instantly, he had their rifles trained on him, fingers already pressing on the triggers. No one had fired yet, so he counted that as a win and pushed any remnant of doubt he might harbour further to the back of his mind, where it wouldn't threaten his act.

"Sweet mercy," the double of Landry exclaimed at the recognition, several completely contradictory emotions invading her expression before she regained her composure and pretended never to have slipped. Lorca used the moment of stillness to sidle forward a little more, getting ever so slightly closer.

"I asked a question," Lorca barked in his most authoritative captain's voice. Even the ensign, inconspicuously not-hiding behind him, phaser raised as he had ordered, twitched a little. It left a considerably smaller dent in the humans, though he suspected they weren't entirely sure what script to follow, either.

"Well," Landry said. "Taking you over, obviously."

She took a step forward, between two of the soldiers, making them relax just a little behind their weapons. Lorca was vaguely glad to see that whatever imposter of Landry he was talking to, she had a the same iron grip on her subordinates.

"Drop that weapon," she added with affected gentleness.

"Answers first," Lorca replied. "Who are you?"

She chortled, an entirely too harsh sound given the circumstances. "Or we could just shoot you."

They both knew she'd already have given that order if she really wanted to, but with only a thin line of assumptions to base his strategy on, Lorca decided to stop pushing for now. Making something of a show of his reluctance, he carefully relaxed his shoulders to stand straight, eased the grip on his gun and slowly raised his hands.

Behind him, he sensed rather than saw the ensign shift and tried to picture her as she started out mimicking his gesture, trying to calculate when it would be time to move, though he never took his gaze off Landry and the others, memorising their precise positions, gauging their abilities for the next few, crucial moments.

The phaser beam crossed through his peripheral vision and Lorca jumped, knowing he couldn't bring the rifle around fast enough to fire _and_ cross the distance. Instead, he simply used the rifle to extend his reach, brushed it past the rifle tip of one of the humans and thwarting the shot that cut green and heated right past him, eating into the corridor lining. Lorca stepped into the man's knee and shoved him out of the way.

Landry had crumpled with the first stun blast and the man next to her, further from Lorca, had done the same, leaving just one with enough time to mount a defence. Though, instead of using the rifle like Lorca had feared, the man realised the rifle was no good at such a close range — unless he wanted to sear himself by accident — he went for the vicious, barbed knife strapped in a sheath by his thigh. And he was good at it, too, fast and without even the sliver of hesitation. The knife cut through Lorca's sleeve and sliced into his arm before he punched him in the jaw. Behind him, the man he'd only shoved off balance had pounced back only for Lorca to drive the butt of the rifle into his stomach. A moment later, a phaser blast from the ensign took him out of the fight for good.

The man with the knife swung back around but this time, Lorca caught the man's wrist, rendering the knife useless for the second it took to wrench him around and into the next stun blast from the Ensign's phaser.

Lorca dropped the man and irritatedly shook out his bleeding hand as he stepped back from the downed enemies. As he did so, he caught sight of further down the corridor.

"Oh my god," the ensign said, coming up by his side, eyes going wide at the sight, betraying a glimmer of shocked tears.

Engineering had been far better defended than it had originally appeared from what they had heard of the fight. Basora would've been trying to mobilise around all sensitive areas and must have got his people here just in time to seal the door and defend it. The corridor was littered with humans, their bodies in various stages of destruction. Some with just burn-marks or stab wounds on their uniforms, others with half their bodies melted to a pulp while several more had been reduced to charred piles.

The ensign slapped her free hand over her mouth, rooted to the spot and unable to decide to turn away and vomit or keep looking at the scene until her sheer horror made it disappear.

"Ensign _Narang_ ," Lorca snapped, using her name for the first time. At least it made her look at him, breaking the mental spiral the sight in the corridor had put her on, though the look of terror didn't leave her face. She was engineering, not security, too young to have ever been in a place where she was forced to deal with abhorrent things happening in front of her helpless eyes. He glanced over her as the lights flickered out again and came back dimmed. He considered saying something uplifting.

"Chin up, soldier," he said and smiled like a shark. "It gets worse from here and I'll need you."

Despite her blanched face, some determination crept into her expression and she nodded grimly.

"Yessir."

* * *

Lorca and the ensign withdrew into a nearby storage room, piled the surviving intruders up in a corner with Narang ready to stun them the moment one of them stirred. Lorca tried to recall what prolonged or repeated exposure to a low-level phaser blast would do to the body and mind, but found he couldn't really bring himself to care. 

He'd used a med-kit to patch his arm, though it still ached a little when he moved it the wrong away. Meanwhile, he'd secured Landry's body in straps normally meant to hold crates. It looked like a tangled web, but the best he had on hand without taking a detour he had neither the time nor the patience for.

He gave Landry an injection to wake her up, then stepped back from her, crossed his arms over his chest and watched her struggle to consciousness. She gave two bleary-eyed blinks, squinted at the glare of the lights and lowered her face so her eyes were in the dubious shadow of her hair.

"I asked a question," Lorca said once more.

She glared at him, pulled experimentally on her bonds, then stilled when she realised she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Slowly, she uncurled her legs from under her and settled her shoulders against the wall.

"I don't even get it myself," she said with mirthless laughter.

"Give it your best," he said, carefully measured menace in his tone.

She chuckled and shook her head. "You can't scare me," she said. "You're all so soft here."

Lorca watched her in silence, considering. He thought he spotted the cracks in her bravado, but there was no telling just how well he could read her just because there was a Ellen Landry he was intimately familiar with. For all he knew, they had nothing in common other than their faces, though so far she had done and said nothing he couldn't picture Landry do and say in the same situation.

"Tell me about _him_ ," Lorca said. He took a half-step forward, watching her for a reaction, then crouched down to bring their faces level. "You're here for him. _He_ asked you to and here you are, isn't that true?"

He leaned in a little. "He has my face. You think he's me."

He made a small gesture with one hand, indicating the Buran and the battlefield she'd been turned into. "Has he even told you what this is about?"

He paused, the thought of the Buran and his crew, being slaughtered or already dead made his nostrils flare in disgust. Curiously, he saw something like recognition flicker in her eyes, quickly hidden, but not fast enough.

"You said we're all soft," Lorca continued. "Do you think I am?"

She snorted, let her head roll back a little, closed her eyes completely before she opened them into narrow slits.

"You're a pale shadow," she said dismissively. Her expression turned cruel. "Don't think for a second you can save your people. Untie me and submit. That's all you can do."

He could tell she truly expected him to fold. She really did think them all too soft for this fight. The threat to his crew was supposed to work. It was never meant as just a step in a negotiation, neither was it ever a bluff. One crew-member every five minutes. How long since he'd left his quarters? Twenty minutes? Half an hour?

For just a second he contemplated his surrender. He'd do it, too, in a heartbeat. But only if he believed it would make a lick of a difference.

He should check the time. He decided not to. There was no point in giving in to what, in this very moment, amounted to nothing more than a distraction.

Without warning, he reached out for Landry, but even before he touched her, her reaction was immediate. She flinched back, legs scrambling uselessly as the straps held her in place. They both realised at the same time what she had just done and so, instead of putting his hand to her throat like he'd intended, he placed his fingertips on her cheek. He felt the tense trembling of her clenched jaw as he slipped his hand down in a tender caress.

Taking his hand back, he leaned just a little closer to her.

"Let's try again," he said, this close to her, a whisper would do. "You _will_ tell me what I want to know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I propose that 'sweet mercy' is an incredibly dirty expletive where this Landry comes from.
> 
> * * *
> 
> _Revised on 18/April/2018_


	2. Red Lines Drawn in the Sand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Important Note:** For the past few years, I've been writing in a tiny fandom with an equally tiny, but steady readership (welcome back, btw!).
> 
> But seeing as this is a new fandom and people seem to actually be reading my scribbles (something that'll never cease to surprise me) it's occurred to me that you guys might not know what you're getting into (a courtesy Disco's actual writers didn't extend.)
> 
> Please know that one of the few rules I adhere to in writing is that _I do not pull punches._ I don't deal in redemption arcs. I don't care if my characters are likeable or relatable. The narrative takes no moral stance. If you see me write a badass, be assured they're going to remain a badass until the, frequently bitter, end.
> 
> I also coin-flip the gender of nearly all OCs. I don't do overtly specific warnings. I assume my readers are adults.

 

Crawling through the Jeffries tube with a prisoner in tow ranked fairly low on the list of Lorca's personal preferences. He needed to leave Landry the use of her hands, though the thought of her wriggling helplessly would have been cause for some minor amusement if the things she had told him hadn't cast a suffocating black shadow on his mood. 

Like her counterpart, this Landry had little patience for scientific problems. She was a soldier and this one was no different. Somehow, she and the intruders had arrived on top of the Buran from a parallel universe. With the general sensor failure, Lorca found it quite plausible that an entire ship had escaped their notice, or at least until it was far too late. They employed something Landry referred to as a 'displacement-activated spore hub drive'.

"Magic mushrooms?" Ensign Narang had supplied as Landry described the basic concept behind it.

"So it would seem," had been Lorca's reply, keeping a watchful eye on Landry in case he needed to catch her lying.

There was nothing fundamentally unbelievable about Landry's claim of being from another universe. It was scientific fact, proven without doubt countless times. Equations existed laying down the exact energy requirement to make a jump from one to another and even several feasible ideas of how such an engine might be built. Though as far as Lorca knew, these things were barely past the theoretical stage, generations away from the construction of even the first prototype.

The ship that had brought them here, according to Landry and the sudden leer on her face, was called 'Buran', but she insisted on calling it an _Imperial_ Starship, nothing so pedestrian as a Federation in her universe.

Lorca was beginning to understand some of what made these people tick, regardless of whether he was going to fully believe Landry's story or not. Their trigger-happiness and their complete overkill of anyone they encountered in their attempt to take over the ship, their mockery in the face of even a hint of compassion.

If what Landry said was true, their leader on the bridge was something far worse than just a clone.

The Jeffries tube ended in a closed bulkhead just above the sickbay access hatch. Lorca shuffled both Landry and ensign Narang on to get to the control panel to punch in his override code and get the bulkhead to open. The console chirped its denial. Lorca tried again and again was denied.

Landry chuckled.

"Your alien on the bridge," she said, grinning. "He's revoked your access after taking one look at _my_ captain. Quick thinking, especially for a dumb alien. Shame it won't matter."

"The 'alien' is my first officer," Lorca said, a simple statement as he slipped his fingers into the narrow seam behind the control panel until he had enough of a grip to yank it free. Some wires came lose with it, dripping blue sparks over his hand. It tingled slightly.

"Smart enough to get the better of you," he added and continued to tear into the circuitry behind the panel.

If Pentawer had revoked his access, then no amount of hot-wiring was going to restore it and rightly so. If it had been so easy, then it would've been useless. There were only few people on a starship with the kind of authority to cut her own captain off from his universal access and luckily, his face flickered onto the tiny screen on the lose control panel.

Lorca picked up the console and angled it at his face.

_"Captain?"_ the CMO said.

Few vulcans served in Starfleet, usually preferring the Expeditionary Group of their home-world. In addition, Lorca had found some hints scattered throughout Mirak's files indicating that previous captains had declined a vulcan CMO on their ships. In their estimate, the CMO needed to be the emotional core of the crew's wellbeing, kind and warm-hearted, and neither were attributes usually associated with vulcans. Mirak wasn't warm, but he had his own kindness and a serenity Lorca found well-suited to keep control in a crisis.

"Yes," Lorca said with a glance at Landry. "I'm stuck outside in a Jeffries tube with ensign Narang and a prisoner. Open the bulkhead for a second."

Unsurprisingly, not even the faintest muscle moved on Mirak's face. He glanced to the side at someone unseen, than dropped his gaze to the console in front of him.

"Sickbay transporters are still functioning," Mirak said. "Under the circumstances, it's prudent to keep the bulkhead closed."

Lorca just gave a dismissive wave with his free hand. "Sure, go head, it's cramped in here."

Mirak nodded, slipped his finger elegantly over the controls and the transporter beam sizzled over the three humans in the corridor. The sickbay transporter was on its own separate network, only capable for inter-ship transport in case of emergencies. The expenditure of energy could no doubt be detected from the bridge, but with the compartmentalised networks, they couldn't hijack the transporter signal to breach sickbay.

Lorca, Narang and Landry re-materialised on the other side of the bulkhead, but separated each inside their own containment field.

Lorca realised instantly what had happened, rolled his eyes because he figured Mirak wasn't going to care either way. Then he watched as the CMO walked around the console to face him.

"I apologise, sir," Mirak said. "However, I've studied the logs as they are available to me. Commander Pentawer has revoked your systems' access using an emergency override command. He did this before triggering the other fail-safes. Which leads to the obvious conclusion that he considered you a threat."

From inside her own containment field, Landry sniggered. On Lorca's other side, Narang cast confused glances between the higher ranking officers, then stepped back to sit down stiffly on the examination bed.

Two security officers stood back against the wall behind Mirak, otherwise this section of sickbay was deserted. Mirak must have cleared it as an additional safety measure.

"I'm afraid it's more complicated than that," Lorca said, realising he was being wordy for no particular purpose other than stalling for time to sort out his thoughts. He certainly didn't need to lessen the blow for Mirak's sensibilities.

"Looks like we've got boarded by a raiding party from a parallel universe," he pointed with his chin at Landry. "She's not the Ellen Landry I've been trying to get on the ship for the past few weeks. Their leader appears to be my evil twin."

He shrugged, fixed Landry and bared his teeth a little. "Or possibly I'm his. Who knows?"

Mirak looked wholly unimpressed with the explanation. The CMO was silent, then glanced back down at his console. "I believe nurse Konetzky has a recreational interest in multiverse theories."

He summoned the nurse and silence dropped heavily while they waited. Lorca knew it was barely a minute before the door slid open, but it was all Lorca could do not to pace in his cell. It didn't really help that it all was perfectly logical, from Mirak's perspective. They didn't _have_ time to play around like this, a life hung on every passing minute.

Konetzky was a large, muscular man moving with an athlete's grace, taking in the scene without comment. He looked from Mirak to Lorca and back, visibly biting back the burning questions lodged in his throat.

Past Konetzky's bulk, Lorca caught a glance of the ordered chaos reigning in the rest of sickbay, bearing Mirak's guiding hand and buffered by a generous complement of security officers courtesy of Basora organising resistance. Lorca itched to get in touch with his senior staff, figure out what really was going on and how to end it.

"Nurse," Mirak said. "Do you know of a way to determine whether a person is from this universe or another?"

Konetzky blinked as the question hit him, palpably, out of left field.

"I'm not sure?" he said uncertainly.

"I understand it is an interest of yours?" Mirak queried.

Lorca already sensed the back and forth that was about unfurl in front of him and eat away more minutes they didn't have.

Sharply, he interrupted. "She," he pointed at Landry. "Is from a parallel universe. So is her leader, who happens to look a lot like me, which is why my own doctor is currently keeping me penned up in here. Short of asking the other me for confirmation, got any ideas?"

"Sir, I'm not an expert…" Konetzky began.

"You'll do," Lorca interrupted. He spread out his hands in barely contained impatience. "Get to it."

Finally the hesitation and reluctance fell away from the nurse and he moved to the console, Mirak calmly stepping out of the way. Konetzky muttered his explanations more to himself than to the captain, who, at this point in time, was far more concerned with the precise order of his next dozen moves.

While Konetzky worked to modify the medical scanners, Lorca noticed Landry drawing ever further back in the small space of her confinement as if she was looking to hide. There was nowhere for her to go, though, so she just leaned her hip against the upper edge of the bed, crossed her arms over her chest and cast her face morosely downward.

"Commander… Landry's?… quantum signature differs from…" Konetzky looked up, at Mirak, then at Lorca.

The captain had snapped his attention back to the nurse the moment what he was saying was of interest to him. Lorca took a step forward, close enough to the energy field he felt it as slight pressure against him.

"Everyone else, sir," Konetzky finished. Mirak read over the results displayed only on the console, eschewing the use of holograms to unburden their potentially damaged energy grid.

"The conclusion appears to be in accordance with the data," Mirak said.

Lorca just gave him a look, eyebrows raised.

"I'm releasing the containment on you and Ensign Narang," Mirak said and settled his fingers on the console.

"Thank _you,"_ Lorca said, half-heartedly suppressing a sneer.

The containment field lifted and Lorca didn't permit himself even a deep breath as he strode out, restless energy finally able to be directed at something to do. At the back of his mind, the lives of his crew ticked away one by one.

* * *

Despite Pentawer's earlier order to remain in their quarters and stations, it was impossible to keep a lid on what was really going down. The ship had taken too much damage, her systems had become too unreliable and there was too much fighting and death in her corridors. The crew had understood _something_ was wrong, even if the true dimensions of the disaster they were heading into remained hidden from them. 

Sickbay was filled with people, off-duty personnel helping out with the startling number of injured crew-members who had fled, or as it turned out, been beamed there with the sickbay transporter. The very reason Lorca had wanted Mirak as CMO was proving itself right. Even in the middle of a crisis, sickbay was running smoothly and it kept unnecessary casualties at bay as well as the rest of the crew calm.

Lorca's arrival went like an intangible ripple through them, though he doubted they knew of the little hitch delaying him. He sensed their attention on him as he stepped out of the isolation section, which, had been made into an impromptu transporter room — and brig — at the suggestion of the security personnel Basora had dispatched to sickbay.

It took only a quick survey of the area for Lorca to find who he had been looking for: a young lieutenant he'd seen in the gym and subsequently told to see a doctor for a sprained ankle he'd sustained while working out. He was a computer tech and as Lorca had hoped, had never got around to leaving.

With his help, the captain brought himself up to speed within just a handful of minutes, it wasn't _complete,_ too many sensors were offline and too many systems were inaccessible. Watching the data spool down in front of him, taking in multiple protocols at the same time and noting what gaps there were in them, Lorca's mood darkened more by each passing second.

The first minutes of the attack were the most telling. This other Buran had materialised above them, its arrival was to blame for the complete systems outage. Whether intentional or not, the outage had created a gap in their security, barely seconds long, but enough for intruder to beam over. Once the systems rebooted or switched to failsafes and redundancies, the ship should have gone to red alert either automatically or at the order of the commanding officer, but there was no trace of it. Instead, the logs showed that the red alert had been countermanded _before_ it was even issued. The override originated in the captain's ready room. If Pentawer had been thinking fast even then or whether a man looking _exactly like his captain_ had had to make a personal appearance first didn't matter. Locking this man out of the systems had been the most crucial decision in the first stages of the invasion. With the bridge and a voice the computer followed perfectly, the Buran could have been theirs before Lorca even left his quarters. 

Instead, Pentawer's move had forced the terrans to turn his ship into a war-zone, complete with territories stacked and marked out, fights breaking out all along their borders. In the time Lorca had held Mirak's hand through accepting his captain's orders, the armoury had been overrun, though Basora had taken what armament he could and booby-trapped the rest right ahead of these _terrans,_ as Landry had referred to her race. Basora had managed to set up a basecamp in the shuttle-bay. The bulkhead seals still partitioned the ship, necessitating movement via Jeffries tubes and hatches, creating neat little choke-points. They couldn't reach engineering and for all Lorca knew, someone else was already busy slicing these doors open.

Co-opting Mirak's office for some privacy, Lorca established a connection with Basora.

"New orders," Lorca said, pacing with a PADD in hand. "Phasers to kill or this won't go our way."

Basora was audio-only, the connection crackling through the rough encryption the computer tech had slapped on it. He was currently setting up a batch of communicators, using the same system, allowing some independence while the Buran's internal communication was most likely compromised.

_"Sir, don't take this the wrong way,"_ Basora said. _"But I thought I was supposed to do that_ anyway. _Was the smart thing to do, soon as I saw what we're up against._ "

"I should un-retire you," Lorca remarked.

_"Ellen's gonna be good for you,"_ Basora said, humour strained but tangible. _"Puts you through your paces, sir."_

"That's the idea," Lorca said. The mention of Landry reminded him of an asset he hadn't exploited fully yet. Without breaking the conversation he strode out of the office.

Sickbay was another basecamp, fortified because it was surrounded by closed bulkheads, entry only granted via the transporter that could only be controlled from the inside. In fact, the review revealed they had control of most of the middle of the ship, but other than the hangar, the belly as well as the upper decks and the bridge were entirely in terran hands.

The flood of people from the sections they didn't control had slowed to trickle, beginning to dry up. Lorca had no way of knowing how many people he had already lost. He didn't even know if his enemies were still making good on their word of executing someone every five minutes. But as much as he wanted to, he found he didn't doubt the threat. Not after what Landry had told him of her universe and what he suspected a man such as himself would be like, coming from such a place.

_"Captain, we could really do with a game-plan,"_ Basora said. _"We've fought them to a standstill, but the bulkheads won't stop them forever, and if we try a sortie without a plan, that's just wasteful, sir."_

"I know," Lorca said. "I have a plan, but the timing will be tricky. How many combatants do you have?"

The term very clearly distinguished between random crew-members getting a phaser shoved at them and crew-members able and willing to use them, especially if they were set to kill. Lorca supposed anyone who had seen the kind of slaughter their enemy left behind in the corridors would eagerly flip that switch, but most hadn't. He should've recorded the image outside the upper engineering door, plastered it across the ship to drive the point home, infused them with fury to match their enemies' ruthlessness.

_"Not enough,"_ Basora said imprecisely. _"Let's say fifty, sir."_

"Split them into small teams, I'm thinking three to four max. Use everyone who can hold a phaser. Get them into position inside the bulkheads, but keep the noise down. Be ready to move out. How long?"

_"Fifteen minutes."_

Three more dead, on top of all the others, Lorca thought and pushed it aside immediately.

"Do it," he said. "Lorca out."

They had devised a workaround by which to give Lorca back some of his authority by linking his voice print to a specific phrase. Lorca used a similar phrase lock for personal logs and found the system clumsy, but it was better than exposing them to someone completely different giving the orders.

When he finished the conversation with Basora, the computer tech signalled him that everything was ready and he walked over to the computer console.

"What phrase should I set it to?" the tech asked.

Lorca hesitated. "I can't risk this other me being able to guess it. Any ideas, doctor?"

Lorca was certain being put on the spot like this made even Mirak uncomfortable, whether he showed it or not had no bearing on it.

Despite this, he answered almost immediately, "I suggest 'Regulation 104 Section B'," he said. "It is obscure, but you are more likely to remember it even under stress, due to a… personal connection."

Lorca gave him a frown. "That reprimand was never put in my file."

"That may well be," Mirak said. "But you did require a follow-up, which is in your medical record."

Few members of the crew and even the senior staff would have allowed themselves the freedom to crack this type of joke at their captain's expense in the middle of a crisis, but then Mirak had some of Lorca's measure and knew the captain valued the dryly humorous nature of the reference. That he, as a vulcan, went to such length was nothing less than a sign of respect.

The tech didn't seem to understand the implication, he merely nodded, slipped his fingers over the console.

"Ready, captain."

"One-oh-four B," Lorca said.

"All set," the tech confirmed.

"Good work, lieutenant," Lorca said, dredged up some modicum of emotion for his subordinate's benefit while his mind was already several steps ahead.

He crossed sickbay to the door where Landry was still being held.

The door parted for him. Only one of the security personnel had stayed behind in the room with Landry. She stood to attention as Lorca walked in, though he didn't even look at her.

"Dismissed, lieutenant."

"Sir," she acknowledged and left.

While he had been gone, Landry had climbed on the bed in her prison, pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. Her forehead rested on her knees, hiding her face and making her seem small in the bare, bright room.

Lorca tossed the PADD at the console, hard enough to make it clatter loudly as it landed. Landry snapped her head up and stared at him. Her eyes were still narrowed as before, though she didn't look enraged. She looked pallid, expression hollowed out with barely any hint of the steel core he knew _his_ Landry had and he assumed this one shared.

"Computer 104B, decrease illumination by half."

The room fell into twilight, washed out its dimensions in his field of vision before his own eyes adjusted. Despite her best attempt to hide it, Landry shuddered just a little as she unwillingly relaxed.

"That's a bad Achilles' heel you've got there," Lorca said. "Especially since we still have environmental controls."

He guessed environmental controls weren't high on the list of priorities, because Lorca wasn't ready to space his own crew just to make a point, or perhaps the terrans had come prepared and didn't need to bother with securing it. 

She was too smart to deny the obvious, opting instead to keep her silence while she could.

"How debilitating is it?" he asked, slowly advanced on the containment field, stopped right outside of it.

Landry sneered, but still said nothing.

"Computer 104B, disable containment."

The computer acknowledged the order and the air shimmered just for a second. There was a chance Landry played up her state to get him to do just this, so Lorca was prepared for an attack, though it never came. He saw her tense, as if she considered it, realised it wasn't going to work and forced herself to keep still. He gave her no time to change her mind about it, because time wasn't something she and her people had left him with.

He crossed what space remained between them too fast for her to react in her crippled state. He wrapped his fingers around her throat and pinned her upper body back on the bed, caught one of her hands and forced it down into the holding straps. He let go of her and bent his torso to the side just in time for her flying fist to miss his temple. Snarling, Landry tried again, kicking out with her legs to get herself higher up and into a better position to fight back. On her second swing, Lorca caught her balled fist and held her for a moment before yanking her hand down on the other side of the bed and into the strap. He had to bent over her to reach and she tried to headbutt him, but couldn't get far enough down to actually hit him. All she achieved was a bit of spittle landing in his hair.

The medical monitors kicked in automatically when he secured the woman to the bed.

Lorca walked back to the foot of the bed, wiped at the dampness on his head and arched a curious brow before fixing on Landry again.

"How many people have you brought on my ship?" he asked.

She glared at him, the comparative darkness reviving her will to fight with every breath she took. Lorca wondered if it was worth repeating the question or if he needed to step up the methods of this interrogation already.

"Our Buran has the same crew complement as yours," Landry answered. "Except we can all fight."

"I asked how many are on my ship," Lorca said. "Or is your _ISS_ Buran now completely empty? Because if that's the case, I can think of several _very_ interesting opportunities." He gave her a meaningful look.

She clenched her teeth. "We brought all the soldiers we could, transported to all non-shielded areas of the ship."

"That's also not true. You only managed to bring a small complement, enough to take the bridge and make a mess of things in some other areas. But there are none here, none in engineering, none in the shuttle-bay. You managed to dispatch _two_ to my quarters as if that was going to be enough."

She glared a little harder. "Why are you asking if you already know?"

Lorca chuckled darkly. "So you realise you shouldn't be lying to me."

He took a breath, slowly broke into motion again and walked in a small circle around the bed until he stood by her right side, glancing down at her prone body, though out of reach of her still unshackled legs.

"You said you needed access to engineering, or you couldn't get home. I asked you before, why are you on my ship?"

"And I told you before, I really don't understand it," Landry almost laughed at him. "I'm here to shoot on sight, that's what I do. That's what my captain wants me to do."

"How many people are on the bridge? How many can fight?"

"We _all_ fight," she said as if the mere implication someone _couldn't_ fight was an insult. 

"You came here riding experimental tech, which means not everyone's talent is shooting on sight."

He leaned forward over her, but she had herself better under control than earlier and didn't flinch, staring back at him in open challenge.

"Tell me a number," Lorca said, dropping his voice low. "What resistance awaits me on the bridge."

"Only the captain and his private guard, that's two, and already more than you can handle," she snarled. "The others are scientists."

"I don't believe you."

He might as well have slapped her, eyes going wide at his statement. He couldn't be sure her surprise was due to how he had called her out or because she simply didn't know how she should convince him of the truth. He had already put most of it together, anyway, analysing the scattered reports and computer logs, reviewing the first few chaotic minutes of the attempted hostile takeover. At a guess, he supposed their experimental tech wasn't reliable yet, causing some damage to their ship or systems as they jumped to this universe. They needed access to the Buran's warp core, probably to bolster their own energy output to get back home. He considered the possibility that they hadn't even _wanted_ to be here, only been dropped in the midst of all this due to some calculation error, but he wasn't quite willing to believe that option just yet. It all seemed far too neatly organised.

"You know," Lorca said, sliding his hand up the side of her face. "I didn't really need to ask all that. I was just talking to pass the time."

She frowned, honest confusion and dark suspicion in her face. Landry spat a curse, kicked her legs uselessly in his direction and then relaxed as well she could, seeming to resign herself to what was, predictably, coming next.

He draped his palm over her forehead to keep her head pinned down and dug the fingers of his free hand into her eyelids to force them open against her instinctive attempt to squeeze them closed.

"Computer 104B, increase illumination," he shouted the order and narrowed his own eyes. "Three hundred percent above standard."

The light flared up, filled the room and ate away all the lingering shadows and the comfortable twilight from one moment to the next. Landry gave a surprised shriek, lurched in her restricted position and tried to pull her head away so she could close her eyes for a little relief. Grunting and whining in pain when it didn't work, interspersed with curses and insults.

The medical monitors sounded an alarm, the display offering several treatment options for the issues it had detected.

The door hissed open.

"Captain!" Mirak raised his voice to reveal his vulcan self-control as a thin veneer over what, in someone else, would have been outrage.

Lorca huffed and took his hands away. Landry's whimpering quieted as she was allowed to hide her eyes.

"Captain," Mirak started. "I prefer to be given an alternative explanation for what you are doing, because the only logical conclusion available to me is that you are torturing a prisoner of war."

Lorca shrugged and let his attention trail over Landry, taking in her state, glancing over the readout of the medical monitors above. There was no guarantee it would give them more than a handful of minutes, a small advantage and it would work only ones and only as long as they could keep the environmental controls.

"Captain?" Mirak prompted and Lorca snapped his head up to look back at the doctor.

"I'd never fault your logic, doctor, you should file a complaint with Starfleet Command," Lorca suggested coldly, walking past Mirak and out of the room. He had a plan to implement before more people died without being given even a fighting chance.

It would've been easy to explain to Mirak that Lorca had needed to know the effects of light exposure, he needed that edge in the fight to come, because he liked the chances much less than he was willing to show. He thought of the Klingons and the battle with them which, secretly, he had wanted for months. Perhaps they could've held their own in ship-to-ship combat, but being boarded? They weren't going to last against a Klingon strike team if they couldn't handle a handful of human soldiers. True, these terrans had come prepared and were ruthless in executing whatever plan they had, but there was no reason to think Klingons wouldn't be exactly the same. It was a sobering thought, weighing on him far more then Mirak's silent disapproval stalking him outside.

He heard the vulcan order the computer to decrease illumination again.

* * *

It took barely ten minutes to do a head-count and assign them into teams, equip them with the phasers and body armour from the locker in sickbay and assemble everyone in the central room for Lorca to give them a quick outline of the plan ahead. He didn't tell them he suspected once the bulkheads were actually open, all bets were off, but if they didn't know it already, they'd find out soon enough. 

Lorca would've liked to broadcast to the entire ship, but it would only tip the terrans off that they were gearing up to something, so he handed the gist of it down to Basora and from there to each individual team leader. Following Lorca's orders, Basora had made sure they retained sole authority over the environmental controls, including and especially the lighting. Lorca had considered playing with them some more, switching off life support or gravity in those parts of the ship occupied by the terrans, but decided against it. He would sacrifice his people, he knew as much and Starfleet had watched him do it at least once before giving him the chair.

He wasn't going to stand back and watch them being executed, though. If it came to it, he'd pitch them against the terrans one by one and see whose material outlasted the other. Starfleet knew this, too. And this other him on the bridge, he'd learn soon enough. 

PADD in hand, he nipped away from the central room to where the replicator was. On the PADD, information updates trickled in of the teams moving into position by the bulkheads, their confirmation when they reached it. He checked the status of the environmental controls. No attempt had been made to force access, neither physically nor through the computer network.

Power distribution had stabilised somewhat, emergency systems kicking in to replace what the fighting destroyed. Not everything had come online, but there were enough redundancies he could afford to make a small gesture.

Glancing up from the PADD, he scrolled through the replicator controls, selected the recipe he'd programmed into it years ago and picked a list of potential messages to include. He confirmed the selection and the replicator opened its hatch to retrieve the bowl of fortune cookies.

He left the bowl on a table off to the side without comment. The crew would spot it and be reminded their captain thought of them even in their darkest hour.

"Captain," Ensign Narang said, standing a respectful distance away from him. She looked worse for wear, even with all her injuries treated properly. Her eyes were wide and pleading, but only when she continued to speak did he realise what she was begging of him. "Please take me along, sir. I know I'm not the most qualified, but I need to be there. I… what I saw in that corridor? I need to…" she faltered and shook her head, searching for words.

"You're in, ensign," he said, interrupting her, no warmth in his voice, just professional calm. "Assemble with the others."

She blinked, once, she must have expected his refusal and come prepared to argue her case. She caught herself, nodded curtly and hurried away to join lieutenants Renaud and Mah, who the captain had picked to come with him.

Lorca adjusted the straps of his combat vest and stepped into the middle of the room, checking his phaser casually as the assembled people quieted and focussed on him.

"You've heard a lot of rumours tonight," he said. "You've heard a lot of stories. Some of you, maybe you've seen what's going on out there in the corridors of our ship. Some of you haven't heard from friends and shipmates since you said goodbye to them in the mess hall yesterday. Here's what happened. At 0300 this morning, we were boarded by a force of hostile humans. They used an experimental engine to jump right to our location and we received no warning. Shields could not be raised before hostiles beamed on board. This surprise attack has centred on the bridge and the bridge is in hostile hands. Ship controls, however, are still largely in ours. These humans… well, let's not mince words, they are from somewhere they call the terran Empire, an alternative universe parallel to ours, but theirs is a savage one. You may see familiar faces, you may see your _own_ face staring at you from behind the barrel of a phaser rifle. Don't be fooled, they are not your friends, they are not here to take hostages, or prisoners. _They are here to kill you_. They think we are weak. Soft. Cowards. But I look at you and I know you are not. You've all been briefed on the plan." He tilted his head a little. "Let's teach them the truth of what we're made of. Let's take our ship back."

He swung into motion, a slow long-legged stride picking up speed and strength as he crossed through the ranks to the door. Renaud, Mah and Narang fell into step behind him.

"Move out," Lorca snapped sharply and turned away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "Regulation 104 Section B" joke would've been a lot funnier if I could've just quoted the number and be done. As it is, it's not canonically numbered: _"All Starfleet personnel must obtain authorization from their CO as well as clearance from their medical officer before initiating an intimate relationship with an alien species."_


	3. Swear to Me in Times of War and Stress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say what you will about Lorca, but he's the first character to earn the honour of my mind attaching a David Bowie song to him. Go check out Telling Lies, if you please. 
> 
> While we're at it, outside the fic, prime and mirror Lorca don't register as two different characters for me, which makes sense because the only meaningful difference is between Lorca and space!Trump.  

The bulkheads opened with scarcely a sound. The limited sensor data indicated that the corridors behind them would be empty; an assesment whichs turned out to be wrong. The corridors were empty of _terrans_ , but while Lorca and Basora had been busy putting their plan together and set it into motion, their enemies had not been idle. The terran captain had not only made good on his word to execute a crew-member for every five minutes that passed, he had made sure those still alive knew about it, too. 

Outside the bulkheads, the bodies were displayed in neat rows with their throats slid, one after another after another in the minutes Lorca had wasted in sickbay, figuring out what was going on in the first place

As the small teams of crew-members moved out from behind the opened bulkheads, expecting a fight, the momentum was lost almost immediately by the horror of it.

Lorca himself and his team didn't encounter any of it. But the comments began trickling through the communicator, slowly at first because they weren't supposed to be talking too much to give the terrans no vector of attack on their slapdash encryption. Neither Lorca nor Basora had ordered absolute radio silence, though, so as the horrors mounted the further they progressed, the status reports began including more and more gruesome details.

Lorca clenched his teeth into silence, crawling through the Jeffries tube again. If he concentrated, he could single out most of the voices. The determined and the desperate. He listened for the ones who said nothing, too, making it impossible to judge whether they were holding it together better or worse than those who put their anxiety into words.

Although Lorca hadn't put too much emphasis on it, the sortie from the bulkheads was in large parts just a distraction. No matter how much damage they did to their enemies' numbers, the fight would only end when someone went and cut off the head, which was what he intended to do. So while most of his forces left through the corridors and advanced into the parts of the ship that had become enemy territory, Lorca took his team back into the Jeffries tube.

Lorca knew his assault was dead in the water anyway. Even if he had the people, the savagery of what they were seeing was too much. Some, he knew, would find their anger and use it, like Narang was doing, but it turned out it wasn't quite so easy for civilised people to match these barbarians.

A woman's voice, a lieutenant in security, said, _"It's a fucking slaughter, everyone's seeing this. Where's the captain? Do you think he even knows?"_

Lorca slowed down just enough to flip open the communicator.

"Lieutenant Tasren," he said, putting the name to the voice, recalling her face. "This is an open channel. Everyone cut the chatter right now, use the comms for tactical only."

Silence.

"Confirm," Lorca demanded sharply and a slow roll of 'aye sir' echoed through the crackling encryption.

At his orders, environmental controls had dimmed the lights in all part of the ship just slightly. It was always possible to use a local override, but for now, the Jeffries tube and the corridor on deck 3 beyond was sheathed in a comforting gloom.

Basora's voice coming through without preamble.

_"There's bodies lining the corridors everywhere. They've been going through the whole fucking crew and setting them up like trophies!"_

Lorca clenched his teeth and didn't answer.

_"I don't know how many prisoners they've still got left."_

"Changes nothing," Lorca ground out. "We take the ship back, now more than ever. Don't fall for that transparent intimidation tactic."

_"With all due respect, sir, I don't think that's the right term for what's going on."_

Lorca stopped at the tone, surprised despite himself at the wave of anger it washed up in his throat. Unseen by his security detail, his eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. A moment later, he realised they had reached the access hatch they had been aiming for and the odd privacy of this confinement was ending.

"Mister Basora," Lorca warned quietly. He felt the attention of the two lieutenants behind him, Narang waiting for his cues, the listening ears of his crew. He wondered when the terrans would break the encryption and he vaguely hoped they already had. The fear and devastation of his crew was battering his mind, the helplessness hollowing him out even as he kept moving. It would be so much easier if the terrans had been there, outside the bulkheads, giving them something to fight right from the start.

"It is what it is," Lorca said, voice as hard as he could make it. "Doesn't matter if you gotta throw up in a corner. We're at war. Anyone who thought it was going to be pretty is learning a valuable lesson right now. Keep moving. Give them back every horror you see. Because that's what I'll be doing."

Lorca reviewed his planning, still unhappy with all the details he had nothing but educated guesses for. The terran ship was, for all Lorca knew, an exact copy of his own, some minor difference or other would be there, but he wasn't going to rely on it. These terrans were on home turf just as much as Lorca and his crew.

He'd briefly considered the transporter, but didn't like his chances of arriving in one piece and the added liability that the transporter's energy usage would be detectable from the bridge and gave them a warning Lorca very much wanted to deny them.

"Computer 104B, increase illumination at my location. Three hundred percent above standard. When we open the hatch, set illumination in the corridor to the same, no increments."

"Confirmed," the computer said. 

Light flooded the tube. It hurt and blinded them for a second, but their eyes adjusted in ways he knew the terrans' would not. He was still wistfully thinking of the flash-bang grenades Basora had abandoned when he'd left the armoury. They couldn't have known then just how invaluable these would have become down the line.

Lorca shifted to the side and allowed Renaud and Mah to get into position with Narang just behind them.

He was going to take point again. It was part of the reason he had selected these two out of his limited options. Seasoned fighters both, but also soldiers who wouldn't try to second-guess him, like Basora would or Landry who somehow still felt she needed to prove herself to him. None of the people in that corridor with him would protect him against his orders and that was exactly what he needed them to do.

He made eye contact with his three companions, nodded, then unlocked the hatch.

There were no enemies in the corridor, but there shouldn't have been any. No essential system was located this close to the hull, just crew and guest quarters, some recreation rooms with a view of the stars outside. Doors stood open and the glimpses inside revealed signs of firefights and struggles as the terrans had dragged the crew from their beds and corralled them somewhere, letting them wait for their execution. The brightness flooding into the quarters from the corridor made their emptiness no less disturbing.

No one to save left, and no one to kill, either.

They searched an observation deck, a comparatively small room, furnished as a lounge for the crew to relax, mirrored dark blue glass behind a bar counter to reflect the stars through the windows spanning the height of the room. While his security detail secured the room, quietly calling out as they found no one hiding in any corners, Lorca was drawn to the window.

Lowering his phaser from its ready position, just to get close enough, he looked up and saw the Buran, hang in space. So close, they could have used boarding skids to get across in mere minutes. It wasn't as similar to his ship as he had expected, though still entirely recognisable. Some modifications had been done to the warp nacelles, an interlocking circular structure like a halo around them, capable of spinning by the looks of it. He was looking at their experimental drive, he knew, but with no information to be gleaned from it. The ship showed no signs of damage on its outer hull.

Briefly, he entertained himself with the idle fantasy of boarding this other Buran. If he really _could_ get his people across without tipping off the terrans, did he stand a chance to take her? The terran captain seemed to have brought most or even all of his senior staff with him and Landry might not have lied after all. Perhaps there was just a skeleton crew left behind, few enough to overwhelm.

He felt Renaud and Mah taking up positions in the room, keeping it and the door in sight. Only Narang stepped to his side, though not quite close enough to interrupt his revery.

"I couldn't believe it," she said quietly, more to herself than him.

"I'm believing it now," he said, allowing himself a little wistfulness despite himself.

The other teams had followed his order, the chatter had cut out and now they only talked when they needed to rely information, allowing him to map out their positions on the ship in his mind.

"Basora? Have you secured engineering?" Lorca asked, still drinking in the sight of this strange, yet familiar ship out there.

 _"All sealed, sir,"_ Basora answered. _"Couldn't get inside."_

He paused, grunted, breathing a little harder. Lorca guessed he was climbing down an access ladder and feeling the strain of it in his muscles. Basora shouldn't be here, Landry should. _His_ Landry, not that strange woman in sickbay wearing her face. 

_"If I may, sir?"_ the computer tech's voice came on the open channel.

"Go ahead," Lorca said and pulled his gaze away from the Buran outside the window as if it didn't matter. He made a sharp gesture with his head to get his team to move back out into the corridor.

 _"Engineering was sealed initially from the inside at the orders of Chief Engineer Bell. Attempts were made to open it using your, uh, that is, Captain Lorca's voice print, which was revoked as we know. Well, after that, a_ second _lock was put into place by the bridge."_

"What are you saying?"

_"Engineering locked itself in to prevent being overrun, but then the terrans sealed it so they couldn't get out. The crew's locked inside until we figure out an override."_

Lorca thought of the implication in light of the terrans needing access to engineering to get home and added it to what he knew. They hadn't been able to contact anyone in engineering since the attack began.

"Ignore engineering," Lorca ordered. "If no one gets out and no one gets in, we'll deal with it later. Keep pushing for the bridge, be prepared for resistance and keep an eye on your six."

A chorus of confirmation sounded through the communicator, this time without needing him to prompt for it.

"Is it bad that I kinda want to shoot them?" asked Renaud as they cautiously made their way along the corridor, phasers ready, but the ship was still eerily silent.

Lorca, in front of the three of them where they couldn't see his face, allowed a smile to cross his face in agreement.

"You itching for it, soldier?" he asked with only a quick glance over his shoulder at the lieutenants. "Because I can get them here any time you like."

"Not sure if that's a promise or a threat, sir," Renaud said honestly.

"Both," Mah said with somewhat less enthusiasm.

"How would you do it?" Renaud asked.

"Simple. Tell them where I am," Lorca said.

"I think maybe it's not a bad idea," Renaud insisted. "We can prepare, let them come to us."

"Let them overwhelm us, you mean," Mah said.

"Or kill them all," Narang said from the rear, though so quietly the lieutenants didn't acknowledge the remark.

"Or die trying," Lorca finished. "There's no area on this deck that'd work, the idea's off the table."

Like Renaud, Lorca was itching for a fight, feeling the tension of it increase down his shoulders and back with every cautious step he had to take along the corridor. If _he_ were to set this trap, he'd pull all his people back as far as possible, turn them into ghosts who could strike at any time and from any direction except _they would not._ The bodies lining the main corridors for Lorca's teams to see was just one side of a larger scheme to demoralise the crew. They had seen all that horror and they were ready to deal in some violence themselves, but the longer it was being denied to them, the more grief would replace the rage, resolve falling apart. The human mind might even start playing tricks on itself. Some of the aliens had different cognitive functions, but the majority of the crew _was_ human, so targeting their weaknesses was the smart move.

If Lorca was setting this trap, he'd make sure the fight didn't happen until his enemies had already defeated themselves inside their own heads.

Renaud's badly-cooked idea of drawing them in sounded ever better when they reached the access hatch they had been going for, leading up another deck. They would come out close to one of the major sensor arrays and Lorca thought it might be worth seeing if he could get a reading directly from the source, some idea of the capabilities of this other Buran. Perhaps even an idea of what this experimental drive might be, so he could give the scientists something to think about…

_"Captain! We have engaged!"_

The shout came over the open channel out of nowhere and Lorca felt the ripple of shock go through his small group of companions. The lieutenants each took a careful step closer to the wall, making sure no one was sneaking up on them. Narang and Lorca kept to the centre of the corridor. The captain because he preferred the freedom of movement and the sick thrill of daring them to attack him. Narang possibly due to her lack of training, or because she was taking her pointers from him. If it was the latter, he rather liked her for it. He spared her a quick, harsh grin.

 _"It's working!"_ a new voice shouted, another team leader. The sounds of phaser fire came through the channel, Lorca tried to gauge how many were already involved in the fights and where they were located in the ship.

Before Lorca could, Basora shouted, _"Keep the pressure on!"_

"What he said," Lorca chuckled at the first good news he had heard all night. He motioned his team to move on.

* * *

Despite the dimmed lighting, the headache barely abated, though it became easier to ignore as time passed, giving Ellen Landry some of her mental capacity back. Though, as her thoughts swirled uselessly in her confinement, she almost wished the pain were bad enough to distract her.

She had told herself she was prepared for this other Lorca to challenge her instincts. She had known about him and she had resolved he didn't matter, he would beg and plead and die just like all the other weaklings in this universe. Which had worked perfectly fine in theory and fallen apart completely at the reality of having _those_ piercing eyes looking right into her soul. He didn't even need to tear down her defences, he simply didn't even acknowledge they existed, leaving her fantasies entirely unchecked. What would it be like, to be this man's enemy and what he could and would do to her. And then, when she'd already broken for him without even a contest, he touched her and the same shock of fear and arousal had shot through her. The gentleness more vicious for how he dismissed her with it, detroying the very concept she had of herself and what she meant to him. If he thought someone wasn't dangerous, Gabriel Lorca would just eat them alive and make them thank him for the privilege. She didn't even need to be reminded of Ava and her fate to be painfully aware of these facts.

Even if this _other_ hadn't known any of it, he'd dealt the same blow and with the same surgical precision, leaving her reeling.

Coming for her not so much later, so beautifully rough this time, had been a relief. At least this way his touch had texture, his focus on her and her alone.

Landry stopped the line of thinking, realising she was still confusing the two men in her head, one and the same whenever she remembered the wrong one.

Carefully, she uncurled her legs from under her, flexed the blood back into them and examined her small prison. The containment field circled the examination bed, keeping the monitors above outside of it. The bed itself was moulded from one piece, nothing for her to tear up and use as a weapon. The mattress was fused to the bed, following the lines of her body for comfort, but giving her nothing to hook into. Still, this was hardly a brig, even if she found nothing locked up inside her that might help.

Her guard had left. She guessed the _Starfleet captain_ would try his luck at a counter-attack and needed what numbers he could muster for it.

She brushed her fingers along the outer edge of the bed, tapped out an impatient rhythm on the frame.

"Come on, come on," she muttered to herself as if Stamets could hear it. Or, if he did, as if he cared enough to do anything about her predicament without a direct order and a threat by the captain. Stamets hated her. Landry was fairly sure he was just jealous, but perhaps he wasn't even that deep.

Perhaps he had been listening after all, perhaps _her_ captain had remembered the value of her, because without warning, the room plunged into darkness, the containment field fizzled out and Landry rolled from the bed to her feet in one fluid motion.

She sprinted across the room to a cabinet filled with medical instruments and tore it open, not caring to hide the loud clattering as the tools fell to the smooth floor. She found what she was looking for, a handheld laser-scalpel and switched it on, turned to the door just as the lights came back, though only in the same soft glow of before.

A moment later, the door slid open the large nurse from earlier edged into the room. He was armed, but didn't move like a soldier. She didn't give him a chance, just leapt at him from the side, aiming to stab the laser-scalpel through the side of his neck. She had underestimated his reflexes, though, and he managed to avoid the first strike narrowly. The scalpel sliced a long cut along the back of his neck and into his shoulder, but while it made him grunt in pain, it wasn't enough damage to take him out of the fight.

He tried to bring the phaser around, but fired too soon and the blast only hit the floor by her feet. She kicked his arm away and the phaser dropped from his hand. He lunged for her, used his size and weight to try and pin her to the wall by the door, but she ducked down, evaded his grip and stabbed upward with the scalpel into his armpit. He made a high-pitched whining sound, more surprised than pained at the tiny puncture in his vital organs. She dragged the scalpel back, tossed it to her other hand and stabbed into his heart, than ripped upward until the laser cut open his throat vertically.

The spray of blood went down over her shoulder as she stepped aside. He was still reaching for her, though he was too slow this time. She gave his legs a kick and he fell forward. There was enough blood to form a puddle for him even before he landed.

Landry wiped a little blood from the side of her face with the back of her hand, went to retrieve the phaser then turned back to face the door just in time to see it open again.

* * *

They were in the port-side sensor array control room when the power went out. Lorca, under the tentative direction of Ensign Narang, had got access to the local readouts and just seen his first glimpse of what the other Buran was hiding. For the most part, it was a pile of fried systems and a leaky warp core. She had enough juice in her to aim at his unshielded ship and black-out everything for just a second. She also had regained her transporter capabilities.

"Here they come," Lorca announced into the darkness, not without a measure of glee as he drew his phaser.

Four transporter beams shimmered into existence and Lorca stepped as close to it as he possibly could, feeling the slightly tingle against the outermost layer of his skin. The terran solidified, froze in captivated shock for just a millisecond right in front of Lorca. The captain tilted his head to side.

"Welcome to the Federation," he said with a sneer and pulled the trigger he was holding at waist height. Set to kill, but not vaporise, the phaser cut a hole right through the terran's torso, but cauterised the damage instantly to make it a clean kill.

More beams cut brightly downward, spilling heavily armed terrans into every open space of the room, giving the captain no time to admire his handy-work. Lorca's nostril flared in annoyance.

Unlike him, the three other members of his little team had used the brief advance warning to find cover along the sides of the elongated room, positioned behind equipment and using their phasers to pick off anyone who materialised and making sure no one could sneak up on anyone else. It also gave Lorca a little more freedom to vent his anger.

He was already well inside the vanguard terrans' defences, he simply punched his elbow into the terran on his right, got hold of the woman's rifle as she staggered.

Another phaser beam found its target before the terran could open fire at Lorca. The captain caught sight of Narang, crouched low in the deepest shadow close to the open door. A little further, Mah leaned out of cover and took aim at something behind Lorca's shoulder.

The captain ducked out of the way and Mah fired.

The terran breastplates offered some resistance to phaser fire, but considerably less than Lorca had been willing to hope for. He supposed they would deflect a stun blast, or a shot from a much greater distance than available almost everywhere on a spaceship.

"They are in the corridor!" Renaud announced, positioned with the clearest view of the door.

Whoever was orchestrating the attack must have figured out that Lorca and his team weren't going to be so easily overwhelmed and switched to a slightly less wasteful approach of keeping them pinned inside the control room, waiting for them to make a mistake.

Lorca briefly tangled with the last terran still inside the room while Narang nodded at Mah, then keeping low dashed across the room to a console and began tapping rapidly with the lieutenant gave covering fire. The door closed and locked the terrans out.

The terran slung an arm around Lorca's chest, steely fingers on his wrist to keep the phaser from him, trying to put the choke-hold in place. Lorca ignored the phaser, he didn't need it, picked the terran's elbow for leverage and pushed up. He was taller than the terran, so slipping away under his grip wasn't feasible. Instead, Lorca just needed a little room, braced himself and dipped his head back sharply. The terran's grip went lax for just a moment.

"I can't keep the door closed for long!" Narang shouted, interrupting her work on the console to keep shooting glances at the door.

Lorca nodded, surveying the room.

"Renaud with me," he order, tipped his head towards the door, rushing over to press her back to the wall on one side of the door while Lorca took the other.

"Mah, firing position, cover us; Narang forget the damn door, you keep your head down and cover Mah, got it?"

He trusted Renaud and Mah to follow his orders even with verbal confirmation, but Narang's inexperience made a bad combination with her eagerness to get her hands on the enemy. Lorca felt the urge to encourage this tendency in her, but it was his responsibility to put her where she would be most useful. Potential like hers needed to be fostered with a delicate hand. 

The door opened in a hesitant stutter, probably due to several conflicting orders being given to it by the network. Searing beams from the terrans' weapons cut through the opening as soon as it was wide enough, covering fire to allow them to push inside by their sheer numbers.

They made short work of the first rush, Renaud and Lorca tearing into them while Mah sucked up their initial attention and Narang had some space to pick off any stragglers before they could sneak up on any of the others.

The terrans had stopped transporting more troops in, but judging by the sudden noise from the open comm channel, it was because they had sprung the same trap on all sections of the ship at the same time. Lorca figured the terrans had done their level best to get behind the security teams, a fairly easy feat if their commander knew in which direction they were headed, which in turn was blatantly obvious to Lorca and therefore would be to the other captain as well.

Lorca could make an educated guess how the terran captain had set it all up, the individual moves clear in hindsight. He'd used the first moment of confusion to transport what troops he could to the Buran, taking what parts of the ship he could and driving the crew to hole up somewhere as they were trying to figure out what was going on and get a handle on how to organise resistance. The terrans had then slaughtered what crew-members they could get their hands on and put them up outside the bulkheads in a creative attempt at demoralisation. Then, the terran captain had pulled his soldiers back, maybe as far as beaming them back to his own ship, knowing he could erode his enemies' willpower by not giving them a fight while they were craving one.

The open door was a natural chokepoint, but ultimately the terrans were too many and started playing it smart, realising brute force was only getting them butchered.

A shot seared Renaud's arm, making the lieutenant cry out in pain, creating a gap in their defences. A terran soldier hacked his knife into Renaud's wounded arm like a hook, pulled her back and into the doorway. She managed to hold on to her phaser, but for a moment it was hanging uselessly in a limp hand. She twisted around in the last second, freeing her arm and turning around. Finding herself staring down the barrel of a rifle, all she could do was drop gracelessly back and hope to roll away before the terran adjusted his aim.

A phaser blast from Mah took him out, but before Renaud had scrambled back to her feet, her side of the door was breached.

Making a little growling sound at the back of his throat, Lorca straightened out of cover, extended his phaser arm, bided his time for a split second. He put the phaser into the nape of the first terran's neck as he crossed the threshold, fired down inside the breastplate. It took the soldier a moment to crumble, enough for Lorca to use her as temporary cover to step out. She was carrying a carbine type of weapon and Lorca picked it out of her hand as she fell by his feet, lifted it up and fired at the next terran at close range.

The whiff of burnt flesh made him scrunch his nose in disgust.

"Move out!" he shouted to his team. He hefted the terran carbine and his phaser and stepped out into the corridor, weapons covering both directions, firing to make the terrans retreat for just a second, a moment in which he could survey the situation device a strategy.

The rhythm of the fight in the corridor was changing and Lorca recognised the sound of phasers a moment before he caught the first glimpse of a Starfleet uniform further down the corridor. Another team coming to meet up and join the fray.

Mah followed him into the corridor, caught his nod and turned right as he went left. Renaud was slower to follow, looking battered in the quick once-over Lorca spared her as she crouched down by the wall, giving him covering fire, but reluctant to get into close-quarter fighting.

Lorca tossed her the terran carbine, flashed her an encouraging grin, then turned back around.

The fight was messy. Terran soldiers and the Buran's security teams mixing with each other as the narrow corridor funnelled them together, forced to constantly expose their backs to the enemy. There was little reliable cover, just the wall and the occasional doorway. The dim light cut through by phaser fire and the searing beams of the terran weapons, beginning to blur the details. Even Lorca lost count of the numbers, his own as well as the terrans, though he was not willing to trust his gut instinct which called them 'too many' in a dryly amused assessment of where this was going to go.

He had no time to dwell on it, no matter how pessimistic he might feel. His phaser needed a new charge, but he had no time to waste on it, because a terran had just pounced on him, clearly intent on knocking the weapon from it. Lorca let it go and used the advantage it bought him and gripped the barrel of the terran rifle to force it just far enough aside the beam missed him. He swung his other hand around and landed a blow at the side of the terran's face, brought his fist up and smacked it into the terran's nose. The terran's head snapped back, but before he could muster any defences, Lorca had kneed him in the groin, ripped the rifle from his grip and put the muzzle to his neck as he doubled over. The rifle blast severed the neck and dropped the head by Lorca's feet.

"Ain't you a sight for sore eyes, captain!" a gruff voice shouted. Lorca looked up to see two women in the uniforms of Starfleet security dispatch the terrans next to them and allowing passage for Commander Basora to join up with the captain.

At close to seventy, Basora's age had bent him just far enough to be of the same height as Lorca, made scrawny by his eroding muscle-mass. For all that, Basora wore a wide, toothy grin on his lined face and a fierce glint in his eyes. He looked down at the beheaded terran, whistled in appreciation before he looked back at his captain.

"Always," Lorca said, humour worn thin but genuine. "How many have you got with you?"

"Pulled them together as soon as the assault happened, but it's difficult to get critical mass out here. We're being bogged down in plenty of smaller fights, pretty much like this. Things are moving too fast, team leaders get sloppy making reports, could really use sensors and an ops officer for this."

Lorca took a breath, gaze drifting away from Basora to take in the corridor in both directions. Basora's forces were moving in now, clearing the space and he saw the terrans begin to withdraw. The other way, Mah and Renaud had dispatched of their own enemies and moving to join the captain and Basora.

Narang lagged behind, gaze skittering back into the corridor, where the debris of the fight just past was piled up, dead and dying, terrans and crew-members both.

Lorca flipped the communicator open.

"Lorca to sickbay, do we have juice for emergency transports? We've got injured up here."

The long silence following the call was the first clue that something was off. Lorca tipped his head in a sharp gesture and Basora translated it into a series of orders for the — Lorca counted them off — twenty-one people — in the corridor. Shaking off the momentary break in the fighting, the crew-members got their phasers ready, found what cover they could against the walls and the narrow bands keeping the segments of the corridor stable.

 _"I thought your vulcan would be harder to beat,"_ Landry's voice drawled from the communicator. _"They are tough little fuckers where I'm from, but I guess everyone around here is just… meek. It's almost boring."_

Lorca frowned. He wasn't going to just take her word for it, but he had a feeling he wouldn't really have to. It didn't matter that they both knew he'd gotten to her, because it was too late now to take it home.

He snapped the communicator closed, but didn't even get to take a breath for his next order when the first shots tore down those soldiers furthest from them. A rush of terrans advanced on them from both directions, ordered here no doubt the moment Landry had control of sickbay and could unlock the encryption to determine the location of everyone carrying one of the communicators.

In truth, there was no point in giving orders even if he'd had the time to do so. He had no overarching strategy to develop and no hands-on tactics to use against the overwhelming numbers of heavily armed terrans coming at them.

The enemies themselves were a blur of gleaming breastplates and black leather, deadly shadows moving in the twilight-dark corridor. Lorca was vaguely aware there was still some reticence in them when they attacked him, as if they didn't quite dare to get too close. The beams from their weapons only ever grazed him, not enough even to really make him feel it. He found his hand gripping the hilt of a terran dagger, the fifth or so weapon he'd got his fingers on since the skirmish started, taking and using and discarding whatever was within reach at any given moment. A savage part of him regretted that he couldn't keep count of them, just saw their faceless shapes drop away as they died and his attention already flitted to the next target.

He managed to shout an order, trying to get his dwindling forces back into the sensor control room, where they had better cover, but they all were threatening to become overwhelmed, same as him. He bumped with his back into Basora, his old security chief having figured out the only chance they had and trying to move into position.

"Captain," Basora said, breathing hard but still with that grin lingering in his voice. "Is this your idea of a proper send-off?"

"It's certainly a dirty little fantasy, chief."

For a few minutes, they worked in tandem, dispatching what enemies they could and trusting each other to deal with anyone who slipped their attention and edging ever closer to the open door of the control room.

Further back along the corridor, Lorca caught sight of Renaud, still upright after taking her beating earlier. She held a terran carbine in one hand, the barrel of a phaser in the other, the latter out of charge and used as a bludgeoning tool. For a second, it looked like she was winning, but from somewhere Lorca hadn't the time to look, a rifle beam cut into her back, then a second punched into her side from somewhere closer to Lorca. He didn't watch her fall, but he spotted the woman who'd fired the second shot just within his reach. He gave Basora a quick warning, but then lunged for the terran. Coming at her from the side he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, swung her around and threw her face into the wall.

He was sorry he didn't have time to finish her off. Someone else was trying the same manoeuvre on him, steely fingers digging into his neck, but he was heavier than the terran and harder to move. He brought his elbow up, scraped it against the wall, ducked back and wound free of the grip, jumped back up and jabbed his fist into the terran's nose several times in quick succesion until he stumbled back, disoriented.

By the time he twisted back around, Basora was down. He'd made it to the control room, though just barely. His right arm hung limp and charred by his side and he'd slipped down in the doorway. He was still conscious, using his left hand to fire a phaser and allow several officers, one of them Mah, to take position in the doorway over and beside him offering covering fire for the retreat of the others.

It was almost enough. The push back to the control room was just picking up traction, the crew-members pinned down further away noticed it and with Mah's covering fire, edged their way towards it, though taking losses as they went. By the time they reached the door, it was only a handful of them left. Terran rifle and carbine fire punched into the officers positioned in the doorway. The first few times, others were close enough to take their place, but eventually, the only cover they had was behind the bodies of their fallen crew mates.

Someone stepped into Lorca's knee, brought him down and he suffered a blow to the back of the head that made his vision white-out for a split second. He threw himself to the side blindly and his shoulder hit the wall. For some reason, his attacker collapsed against him. Lorca wrapped his arms around him, found where the terran knife was still sheathed and pulled it out, then kicked the deadweight body off.

Further down, he saw Basora's phaser arm go limp and his head loll back. Somehow, he still managed to give Lorca that grin. Lorca hurried over to him and dropped to one knee by his side.

"Chief," he said.

Basora shook his head weakly. "Don't be a sap now," he said. "You don't need to be holding my hand. I'm just dying. Nothing I can't finish on my own."

Lorca curled one corner of his mouth upward.

"Proud to serve with you," Lorca said. 

Lorca fixed his security chief, gave a quick nod, waited for Basora to return the gesture before he levered himself back to his feet and turned back to the fray around them, but by then it was already over.

He saw the terrans cut down or shoot the last of his remaining crew-members, then turn to advance on him. They had ceased firing, clearly intent on capturing him, now that they thought they stood a chance. Lorca swung himself over the dead piled in the doorway and into the control room, picked the phaser from Basora's hand and found a spot in a dark corner to use as cover.

Their last stand had put a dent in the terran's numbers, enough so that Lorca could pick them off as they tried to force themselves into the room, counting them off this time. One, two, three. Then they turned wise and stopped coming. He didn't know if they had resolved to wait him out or if he'd killed them all. How ironic it would be, getting so close to succeeding only to fall short. But he had seen more of them in the corridor. He returned to the edge of the doorway, peeking out, found a target and shot, drew back without checking if he'd hit anyone.

Patience had never been his strong suit, waiting for his enemies to come to him didn't agree with him and he certainly didn't like being hunkered down like this surrounded by his killed crew, some of them watching him from empty, open eyes as if blaming him for not fighting hard enough. But it was patience that won this round, wore down the terrans' numbers until the silence outside in the corridor was impenetrable.

Lorca just waited for a heartbeat longer, unable and unwilling to keep still, then left the control room, climbing over bodies as he did so. His gaze passed over the slaughter, the remnants of friends and enemies. He checked Basora's phaser, then tossed it away as he started picking his way along the corridor, scanning the floor for a communicator.

What he found, instead, was Ensign Narang, crumbled like a broken doll against the wall. Rattled breathing and bloodshot eyes slow to focus on him. She had a terran knife stuck in her side, sitting in the pool of blood she had already lost, turning her uniform black in large patches.

He said her name and she flickered her attention to him, took a moment to recognise him, then smiled weakly. Her face was pale and serene, covered in the glow of a thin sheen of sweat.

Carefully, Lorca settled by her side, barely daring to touch her so as not to jostle that vicious blade.

"Did you know I was a cadet until two weeks ago?" she asked, faraway expression slipping on her face as she drifted into her memories.

"I know," he said. "Of course I know."

He had co-signed the field promotion of several cadets stationed on the Buran after the Battle of the Binaries. He had also refused several of them and transferred them back to San Francisco. He had wanted to keep only the ones who were ready for what was to come.

"My brother was so worried for me," she continued. "He's older than me, a first officer on a freighter." She snorted a little laugh. "Always thought he needed to protect me. He said 'Ava, your captain better take care of you or there'll be hell to pay'. I… thought it was funny. I can take care of myself. That's what I told him."

She laughed a little, then winced when new pain shot through her.

"That went well," she said plaintively. 

She slipped further down against the wall, her head lolled to the side until it rested against his arm. "I thought, what's there to be scared of?" she continued quietly. "I was so sure."

Her body shuddered and she leaned closer to him.

"I'm scared now," she confessed in a whisper. She snuggled into him, seemed to have a clear moment and realise what she was doing. Her body trembled as she tried to shift away, failing to blush because she'd already lost too much blood to do so.

"Hush, soldier," he told her, slung his arm around her shoulder to stop her and she stilled.

"I'm cold," she added and sunk into his arms more, hissing at the pain. She brought her hand down to the knife, but didn't seem to dare to touch it. Lorca caught her hand and tucked it back up.

"Why aren't you telling me it's going to be all right?" she asked.

"Because it's not."

Gently he slipped his arm around her shoulder, no pressure at all, just a little weight and warmth for her. She felt small, breakable, but she relaxed with every breath against him. The blood flowed harder.

"But it'll be over soon," he added, the only promise he could make without lying. He brushed a strand of damp hair from her face with his free hand.

Her expression relaxed and her breathing calmed, trusting the soothing tone of his voice, almost as if she was just falling asleep. She leaned into him, weightless in his arms, a dying bird he couldn't save, just like all the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Startrek.com lists Ava as a cadet on the ISS Buran, so it's entirely possible she's on the USS Buran as well. Her surname isn't explicitly stated, which made it fair game as far as I'm concerned.


	4. A Sacrifice of Kings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's an updated introductory note in the first chapter if you're confused about this story's premise! I think it's necessary to clear these things up as we're heading into the climax of the story. I don't want anyone to be disappointed.

 

When the turbo-lift door opened with a quiet hiss, Lorca tossed out the communicator he'd used to call the bridge, shortly followed by the charge of a phaser and then the weapon itself. He'd picked up the phaser on the way and the charge was empty anyway, but he figured it was all going to be in the gesture. 

He stepped out of the turbo-lift with his hands loosely by his side, taking in the bridge without turning his head. It bore the marks of fierce resistance, though ventilation had cleaned the air by then, Lorca still smelt the hint of burning meta-material and expunged electricity fires from shortened circuits. Energy weapons had cut deep grooves into the walls and some of the consoles. Operations was a dark pile of charred polymer, but it was the only non-functional station. Terrans manned all other stations, the short glimpse confirming they knew the systems they were controlling and had probably been able to compensate for much of the damage.

Counter to his expectation, there were no corpses, though he had seen Lieutenant van der Merwe's body posed just outside the turbo-lift when he'd got in. He assumed the missing members of his bridge crew had been similarly posed somewhere else on the ship. The three who were still alive sat in front of the view-screen. Officers on duty, operations and science, Skelnik and Chaplin, both looking only slightly less battered than Lorca did.

A slow ripple went through them as they saw him, but Lorca was displeased to realise their relief mixed with both worry and suspicion. Lorca wondered what sorts of mind-games had been going on on the bridge up until now. He sought out Pentawer's gaze, but the deltan avoided it, opting instead for a look over the others, who then settled down with tired patience. Lorca had expected to raise his crew's spirits with his appearance, and their lack of reaction rankled. Not only that, though, he was going to need them later and he wouldn't have time to explain anything to them. They needed to trust him and jump when he called. While he should've expected this desolation, he had hoped for something better.

The woman in the captain's chair studied him with blatant curiosity, much like a playful predator would consider the presentation of a new toy. She looked familiar, but Lorca couldn't place her immediately, so he simply returned her gaze steadily. A slow smirk spread across her face, flecks of light in her eyes. She slipped to her feet in a perfectly smooth motion, stepping towards him with the deadly grace of an advancing wildcat. Lorca held himself still, but arched an eyebrow at her when she stepped so close to him, she had to raise her head to keep meeting his gaze.

Disappointment shot across her viciously amused expression.

Lorca found a sneer to put on his face and into his voice, he said, "Oh, was I supposed to flinch?"

"You are supposed to kneel and surrender," she said, playfulness blown away as quickly as it had come at his insolence.

"Not to you," he said, casting another look around the bridge, dismissing her even though she was right in his face. For a moment she looked like she was about to strike him, but as her face unexpectedly settled, Lorca finally realised why he knew her, but couldn't quite place her. She wasn't a member of his crew. She was Michael Burnham or at least some version of Starfleet's only mutineer. As someone who had never quite disagreed with Burnham's intentions — though her tactical execution and success left something to be desired — he was curious what this one would be up to.

"Not today," she said, taking some of the sting out of the remark for her own benefit and the ears of her listening subordinates. Terrans, Lorca was certain, had a fragile ego in these matters and he had not enough left to lose to try and spare them.

Burnham looked past his shoulder and said, "Cuff him."

Giving her a faint smile and willingly put his hands behind his back, gaze brushing over the terran guard who came forward and slammed the cuffs on his wrists. The locking mechanism engaged, resting heavily but without any actual constriction on his arms.

"Come," Burnham ordered and stepped past him, gliding towards the ready room. Lorca tried again to catch Pentawer's gaze and this time his first officer looked back. His porcelain skin was bruised and he had smoothed his face into an expressionless mask he didn't allow to slip, but he gave a very faint nod before re-angling his face downward again.

Lorca turned and walked after Burnham and into his own ready room.

"…not how it works! You need me!" a man's shouting spilled onto the bridge when the door opened rooted Burnham to the spot in the doorway. Her previous self-assurance briefly suspended as she realised Lorca probably shouldn't be made privy to an internal rift.

Thinking, _showtime_ to himself with dark amusement, Lorca stepped close behind Burnham, crowding her with his presence, but she had enough self-control to hold her ground. Or possibly she was more captivated by the scene.

Over her shoulder, Lorca trailed his attention through his ready room. Except for the dim lighting, nothing seemed to have changed. The two narrow couches following the outline of the room on either side of the door, smooth white material uninviting to linger on. Two PADDs and an empty coffee cup still rested on it, where he'd left them. The two sketches of 19th century sailing ships a girlfriend had given him on his birthday many years ago, Erebus and Terror prominently displayed in flowery writing underneath each ship. He could respect a captain willing to command ships with these sorts of names. On the opposite wall, his collection of bladed alien weapons was entirely untouched. He glanced over the sharp edges as they glinted in the distant starlight, indulging himself in picking out a good place for a terran knife.

Two men stood in the open space in front of the desk, facing each other. The one who'd shouted was unknown to Lorca, pale and blond and sardonically sneering even though his body language wavered between deference and insolence. Though wearing the same uniform, he didn't have the bearing of a soldier. Egghead, Basora would've said with some disdain and Lorca concurred. He recognised the tone and voice of the man who had told Landry not to blow up engineering.

The man he was facing was the terran captain. Lorca searched his mind for the correct term to use for a man who looked exactly like him and came up empty. It had been deceptively easy with Landry, but this was an entirely different obstacle.

The terran captain didn't move, only turned a frosty blue gaze towards Burnham.

"Get out or come in," he said, prompting Burnham to step forward and Lorca slipped in behind her, walking far enough to let the door slide closed behind them.

The terran took his gaze back to the blond man. Although they were standing nearly at arm's length apart, the terran towered, poised and intimidating. It was far too late to be surprised or taken aback by how similar this man was to himself, so Lorca merely took it in, observed him, same stature and posture, same piercing stare, even the same lines beginning to mar his handsome face. The similarity didn't stop at mere looks, either, they shared the same mannerism and Lorca recognised the languid anger simmering just beneath the terran's seemingly controlled exterior.

However, underneath a black leather jacket, the terran was wearing a Starfleet uniform.

"Would Straal be giving me the same answer?" the terran captain asked.

The blond man bared his teeth. "Straal's _dead._ I really hope he doesn't give any answers anymore."

"Hmm," the terran captain said, angled his head back and gave the blond a skeptical look along the length of his nose. "He's dead because you killed him after you stole his research."

"Oh don't be silly," the blond said, offended all the way through. "I never even needed his research. I just wanted to fuck him." He shrugged. "And fuck him over. Can't really say which I enjoyed more…"

"Did I back the wrong man?" the other Lorca asked, feigning mild curiosity with an arch of both eyebrows. He didn't wait for an answer to a threat dressed up as a rhetorical question.

"Paul," the terran crooned, took a crucial step forward and wound a hand around his neck before the blond had time to figure out if he wanted to flinch or stay. Either way, he wasn't getting away anymore. The terran leaned a little closer, his grip forcing a downward tilt and making it impossible for Paul to keep looking at his face. "If you're no longer useful, I'll kill you."

Paul didn't resist the grip, though his body was fidgeting just a little, resisting the urge to get some distance back between them and knowing he wouldn't be allowed to leave.

"You don't even understand the spores," Paul insisted, though he couldn't stop a whine from creeping into his voice. "How are you going to bring them back? You'll just be stranded. You'll need me."

"I can't hide a whole ship in a war, she needs to go home and you need to hold the network together until I get back. I'll find what help I need in this universe."

He loosened his grip just a little, a smile sliding into his voice like an unsheathed dagger. "But I didn't know you cared."

He gave Paul a slight shove as he released him, visibly pleased the scientist didn't actually lift his head towards him even though he was free to do so.

"Ellen has finally gotten control of engineering," the terran said as he stepped back to the desk. "Hook us up, we've wasted enough time."

The brief encounter had clearly rattled the blond, but he still groaned. "Landry?" he asked, pulling a grimace. "Just… don't do me any favours."

"Just don't make me shoot you," the terran said in dismissal as he stalked around the desk. He disdained the chair.

With the blond gone, the terran looked at Lorca directly for the first time, though they both had caught him sneaking quick glances even though he had been focused on his little intimidation game. Just like Burnham before, he made no attempt to hide his curiosity, gaze raking down Lorca's body as if searching for any deviation and coming up empty.

A smile full of teeth spread across his face. He lifted his hand and gave the bowl of fortune cookies a little shove before he picked one out and said,

"Why does a man who makes his own destiny keep these around?"

He snapped the cookie in half, crumbled it a little and put a piece in his mouth.

"Old family business," Lorca said.

The terran made a non-comital sound, pulled the little piece of paper from the other half of the cookie, straightened it out in his fingers as he chewed. His eyebrows wandered up and for a moment it seemed like he was fighting laughter. He offered no explanation, dropped the paper and ate another piece of cookie.

"Tell me what you're thinking, Gabriel," he asked as if they were old friends meeting at a bar.

"I'm thinking of this risian I wouldn't mind having two of."

Behind him, just at the edge of his vision, Burnham poised herself on the couch, content to watch the spectacle.

Humour crossed the terran captain's face without reaching his eyes and without lingering. He bided his time as it dripped away and vanished as it had never been. He said, "You're going to give me access to your personal logs."

"You came all this way just to read my diary?" Lorca asked and shook his head, pretending to fight off laughter, when in truth he felt anything but. He had his suspicions why the terran wanted the personal logs. It was for the same reason he was in that uniform.

"I came all this way because I'm fighting a war for what's mine," the terran said. "I have a powerful weapon, but we've run into some minor setbacks. Overambitious scientists, prototype tech, you know how it is. Useful, though. Worth it."

He shrugged, shook himself free from the desk and sauntered around it to come face to face with Lorca. He held his gaze a moment, then looked around the room, Lorca taking his lead because he was curious where he was going.

"I've read your files," he said, his nostrils flared briefly. "Nothing interesting, just the basics, it was all there was." His attention glided over the sketches but came to rest on the weapons. "No mention of this."

He snapped his gaze back around sharply. "The logs would've made it easier, but I think I'll manage."

Delicately, he reached out with one hand and plucked the rank insignia from Lorca's chest. It wasn't an unexpected thing to do, Lorca merely narrowed his eyes, but kept himself very carefully still. Even when the terran took a half-step back and affixed the insignia to his uniform.

"What about my crew?" Lorca asked. Apart from those on the bridge, he had no guarantees anyone was even still alive, but it still bore mentioning. Some pockets of resistance would still be holding out on the ship, perhaps even having given up fighting and chosen to hide instead, hoping to be saved or spared when they realised there was no winning for them.

The terran shrugged out of the jacket, twisted and tossed it carelessly at the desk. It was Burnham who answered.

"Their lives depended on your surrender," she said. "You haven't."

Lorca felt her gaze pass over him and lock with the terran captain's in some silent communication. "And you won't," she finished. It wasn't a question, it wasn't even yet another demand for it. She'd concluded he wasn't going to simply because there was nothing left for him to gain. If this terran wanted to take his place, then no one could be allowed to survive anyway.

He wondered if she had considered he had nothing left to lose, either.

Lorca turned his head to the side, caught a glimpse of her and curled one corner of his mouth upward into something that was not at all a smile.

"Got it in one. You wanna a cookie?"

"I could break you, you know," she said.

"'course, but you'll need more than one lifetime."

He arched an eyebrow, challenging her. She looked like she was fully prepared to take him up on it, too, ready to pounce on him and start. He realised he was tensing under her steady gaze, giving too much of the contest away, but then the moment snapped and he was spared for once.

When the terran captain started for the door, Burnham immediately forgot Lorca was even there, slipped to her feet and caught the terran captain around the waist and he willingly swung around in her embrace. She gave him a leisurely kiss, tightening her grip on him and bringing her other hand up to dig her fingers into the short hair at his neck.

Arching a brow to himself, Lorca glanced over his desk, but dismissed it and sauntered over to the couch, opposite of where Burnham had sat and took a seat, casually crossing his legs at the ankles and relaxing as well he could into the uncomfortable upholstery.

It was the terran captain who pulled away, casting a short glance past Burnham's shoulder at Lorca, a look which might mean many things.

The terran pushed his chin towards Lorca and said, "Keep an eye on him and all pieces intact. In case we still need him."

Burnham made a growling sound, whether disappointment at the ease with which her captain stepped out of her grip or at the orders, Lorca couldn't tell and barely cared beyond a petty sense of triumph at her minor misery.

In uniform, with the insignia and without the leather jacket, the terran would've been a true mirror image of Lorca, if not for Lorca's weathered state. _His_ uniform had suffered burns and cuts, there was a tension along the side of his cheekbone that told of a spreading bruise and blood crusted over his knuckles. As it were, he looked much more like he belonged in a barbaric counter universe.

The other man's plan was still vague, the incomplete snatches Lorca had heard of the conversation with the blond not nearly enough to assemble the full picture. Though still pondering what he knew, Lorca leaned into the couch and watched him leave, the relaxation not entirely fake. It was the terran's move now. Someone would throw him a line soon enough.

The door slid closed on the bridge again and Burnham twisted around on one heel, giving him a contemplative look, chewing her lower lip between bright white teeth.

Or someone could be made to throw him a line.

Lorca angled his head back, baring his throat just a little, watching her with a heavy gaze, wondering if she would accept the invitation or sense the trap and keep her distance.

She swallowed the bait whole.

She took the two steps towards, she straddled his hips, knees folded on the couch on either side of him, bringing her smirking face close to his. She teased her hands up his arms, over his shoulders, then dug her nails into the sides of his neck, cupping his face in a none-too-gentle grip.

"Why so desperate?" he asked in a low croon, shifting his body towards her to free his bound and trapped hands a little against her added weight. "Gabe not getting it up for you?"

Fury flared up his eyes and then died down to heated smoulder and she chuckled at the, to her, obvious ridiculousness of the implication.

"We could show you," she cooed. Her grip tightened to the point of pain, tiny punctures along his jaw from her nails, finding the edge of the bruise. The skin felt like it was about to split. She drew a thin line of pain as she wrapped her hand around his neck, pulled at his hair. She folded her steely fingers over the back of his skull, keeping him securely in place as she curled her body close above him.

He gave a slight smile of his own, just enough to keep her distracted, voice still low.

"I'm sure I'll find that sweet spot in no time."

He leaned forward as if to kiss her, though he had a feeling she would prefer a bite. For just a moment, he wasn't even sure he was opposed to either, but that was just the adrenaline talking.

The handcuffs gave the quietest possible click.

"Ah." He winked at her. "Found it." 

Her expression hardened, suspicion drawing her brows together and she began withdrawing from him, though he didn't let her get very far. Lorca brought his freed hands up. One to grip her shoulder and hold her in place while he swung the handcuff into his other hand like brass knuckles and punched it into her temple.

He didn't have room to swing, so he compensated by giving her two more, short jabs before she mustered her combat training, deflected his third blow with her arm and butted her head down onto his nose. He tasted blood, twisted the arm she'd caught to free it and dislodge her. She didn't resist, probably as eager as he was to get a little breather before the action started. She rolled to the side and to her feet with the same feline grace she had shown in all her movements.

Under different circumstances, he might be wary of her, aware he couldn't simply overpower her, taking her down needed finesse, not brute force. But these weren't different circumstances. The fresh pain did nothing but thrilling as he used the moment she was off him to twist around and pick a nausicaan scimitar from the wall just above, then swung away from the wall instantly.

It was an antique, but it was hardly a ceremonial weapon, longer than the mek'leth just as its side on the wall, ending in a pick rather than a tip the inside curve jagged like shark's teeth and the outside edge perfectly smooth. And by some odd chance, it fit his hand as if it had been made for him. 

He kept pressing her, making her scramble away from him awkwardly, unable to go for her weapon, but then she moved as fast as he had suspected she was capable of. With the tiny distance she'd gained, she took a running start in a tight circle around him, used one of the couches as a springboard. She drew the knife and jumped for his momentarily unprotected side.

She sunk the blade into his shoulder but at the price of the scimitar's spiked hilt hitting the back of her neck. She stumbled and ripped the dagger free of him and punched the flat of her free hand into his already sore nose. Lorca aligned the long scimitar with his forearm and brought it around, delivering a long cut along her belly just below the protective breastplate just as she twisted away. He lunged for her and the scimitar's pick tip caught on top of her breastplate, he turned them around and levered her into the door.

She hit it, just before it hissed open and dropped her on her back on the bridge.

Following her, he flexed his hand to check for damage in his shoulder, but found only a thin slice of pain running through his muscles. 

Attention fell on them, as the terrans and remnant Starfleet crew worked through their momentary surprise. Lorca spotted the terran captain by the comm station, glancing up at them looking for all the world like a prim and proper Starfleet captain. He had even smoothed the hair Burnham had tousled before.

No one interfered.

Grinning with bloodied teeth, Lorca lunged after her. The much shorter and smaller terran knife put her on the automatic defensive, allowing him to drive her further back with each step. She tried to compensate, flowing inside his guard like water and striking with the relentless lightning speed of a viper when she did.

Every time she landed a blow, a stab, a slice with her knife, the terrans cheered her on. He was beginning to feel it, too, he'd been fighting for hours before even getting here and the sick thrill of it could carry him only so far. He was losing not just the big game, but this small part of it, too.

He caught sight of the terran captain's face when the rhythm of the fight brought them around and saw him past Burnham as she crouched for a jump. He had expected to see calm confidence on the other man's face, but his stony expression was an ill-fitted mask. His sharp eyes darted between Burnham and Lorca, tracking the location of their blades, clearly mapping the potential attack vectors and vulnerabilities and he did not like what he was seeing.

Burnham jumped. At the same time, so did Lorca. He wasn't going to defeat her by trying to overpower her, she was too fast and too nimble and she landed too many, too heavy blows. The only way he'd get her to truly engage him, he'd have to give her a weapon equal to his. Or... he went for her knife, the wrist of the hand that held it while he dropped the scimitar back, aligned once again with his forearm like an oversized dagger. She saw the lunge, dragged her knife back, scraped the spikes of the handle over his palm, twisted it and stabbed it past his arm at his stomach. He turned away from the blow, baring his side where the scimitar was and sliced it square across her torso, just below the breastplate.

She hissed sharply, her uniform gaping open, welling blood, but he hadn't cut deep enough to gut her. Yet. He stepped close to her, going for the knife again, knowing she'd twist it away and try him again. He wrapped his fingers around the hand-guard, the bare blade cutting into his palm, but he had enough grip to yank it from her. Deliver a blow with the hilt of his scimitar into her side before she could evade him. She doubled over, tried to withdraw and gain some space.

Someone shouted, "Burnham!"

A terran tossed her a new knife and she threw herself towards it. Well-meant, Lorca thought, but her move exposed her. He slung the handle with the knife around her back and towards her throat, smashing the spikes of the hand-guard into the soft skin underneath her jaw.

The thrown knife hit her elbow with its hilt as she failed to catch it against his onslaught. He pulled her as close as he could, driving the spikes of the handle as deep into her face as he could, though he was doing more damage to his own hand.

He dropped the dropped knife, gave a hard shove away from him. He swung the scimitar back into a forward position and rammed it forward into her body, cutting through skin and flesh and cartilage like butter. Lorca came close again, following the blade and his bleeding hand on her shoulder to keep her in place, gaze digging into wide-open eyes, drinking in the succession of emotions from surprise to shock to absolute pain and then the gruesome realisation of her own death. A wail worked itself from her open mouth, gasping for breath as if that would make a difference.

Lorca's dragged his gaze past her, to where her lover stood. Lorca had, for just a second, an unmitigated view of the expression of his face. He'd lost the mask and his face was full of raw, helpless fury.

He was too far away for the scimitar, no matter what Lorca tried or not tried, but the woman was right here, twitching in his hands and on the end of his blade. He made sure the other one saw his face as he twisted the scimitar just slightly, making sure the pick tore through new tissue as he slowly withdrew the blade. She made an aborted sound, ridiculously faint given the magnitude of the damage he was inflicting on her.

Lorca ripped the scimitar free, opened the wound he had just made wider, small bits of bright-red flesh still clung to it, blood poured freely from her. When he let go of her shoulder, she collapsed, a marionette with her strings cut and lay at his feet, gargling helplessly, spasms running through her body, twitching as if in carnal pleasure in her dying.

Something had shifted around him, Lorca could feel it in how the cheering had gone out and been replaced by a reluctantly reverent silence.

Inter-species Cultural Dialogue was an infamous course at Starfleet Academy. Required course-work for every cadet, but it could make or break anyone on the command track. It was notorious for being an essential topic, ruined without fail year after year, by being held by the least engaging lecturer Starfleet was able to find. Cadets sat through it, beat the details and concepts and conversation formulae into their brains, only to find, two words into a conversation with any alien a better way to do it. Lorca, for his part, had walked away from the lecture with a lesson learned he wasn't sure Starfleet had ever considered in all its implications. The point of the lecture was for cadets to understand that their own norms were ill-served by being forced onto others. Lorca had carefully checked the required answers and kept his own counsel. It never was about _respect,_ as Starfleet clearly thought. No, the point was understanding these alien cultures so well, he could beat them at their own game.

The terrans were looking at entirely the wrong man.

Lorca raised the scimitar, the elegant blade felt heavy to his tired muscles as he forced himself to keep it steady, aiming the tip at the man wearing his face and an expression of absolute shock carved all the way down.

"Look at him," Lorca said through bloodied teeth. "Is that your captain? Is that who you follow? Too weak to fight his own battles? Too stupid to pick a worthy champion? Too cowardly to finish what she started?"

Silence was his only answer, but he could feel the world impacting the terrans' mindset, considering the implications of what this Federation officer had just done, and what it meant to them.

The terran captain shook free of his immobility and walked close to Lorca, showing no hesitation despite the sharp edge of the scimitar still levelled at him.

"You," the terran captain said, voice so low it was barely audible, but in the near absolute silence it carried. "Need to bow."

He glanced at someone behind Lorca and there was movement. He couldn't have defended himself even if he had wanted to, he needed to keep his gaze on the other man. A moment later, a sharp pain bit through his leg as a terran cut through the tendons on the back of his knee. He dropped as his leg gave way, needed to use the scimitar as a crutch to lean on and keep himself from falling further. He'd bared his teeth at the pain but made no other sound. 

The terran captain stepped close to Lorca, showing no hesitation despite the sharp edge of the scimitar still in Lorca's hand. Destroyed leg or no, he had just proven he had to be counted with. But the imposter had no choice, not with that silent shift, not with a crew that valued strength and ruthlessness over all else. With the blood beating hard in his temples, adrenaline still coursing through his limbs, numbing the pain and the source of all his hatred within reach, Lorca entertained what it would be like, to kill this abomination and take his place, keep him alive just long enough to make him understand the precise nature of his failure.

"Was it worth it now?" Lorca asked, dragged his gaze away from the other man and down to the body of Michael Burnham, made sure the other had followed it and had to look at her. True mirrors of each other in this one single instance of loss and desolation. "You're not getting her back."

"Won't I?" the other asked, arching his brows as he struggled to regain his composure. "Seems like there's two of everything here. I'll find her again."

"Won't be her," Lorca shrugged, though his body hurt and his damaged shoulder made the gesture awkward. He bared his teeth, dropped his voice to a disgusted drawl. "Just another imposter."

The red alert howled into the silence, a five-minute countdown splashed across the view-screen: Self-destruction sequence active.

Around Lorca and the terran captain, the terrans shook into motion again, remembering their duties and the stations they had manned. The Buran shuddered.

"Captain, we've engaged the tractor beam," one of them said. "It's locked on our ship, sir."

"Disable it," the terran ordered without moving.

"I... can't."

The terran captain's eyes narrowed against the thin smile Lorca couldn't stop from creeping on his face.

The terran captain said, "Computer, disable self-destruct."

"Unable to comply."

The terran's nostrils flared. "Computer 104B, disable self-destruct."

"Unable to comply."

"You didn't think that'd work, did you?" Lorca said.

The terran broke into sudden violence, kicked the scimitar out of Lorca's lax hand and wrapped his fingers around his throat. The grip was not secure enough to truly choke him, just enough to pressure to allow Lorca to lever himself back to his good leg, his focus narrowed at the sick anticipation of the minor rush once the other released him.

The terran tossed him back, into the captain's chair and followed him there, leaning down over him with both hands supported on the chair on either side.

"What did you do?" the terran demanded.

"Something like a dead man's switch," Lorca said, couldn't help the smile breaking into a grin, didn't want to, either. "Starfleet didn't want me to install it, so I did it anyway. We're at war with the klingons. Do you know what they do to prisoners? That won't ever happen to my crew on my watch."

For a long moment, the terran said nothing, though Lorca knew the thoughts and calculations chasing each other inside his mind, trying to wring some kind of victory out of the situation.

He angled his head to the side. "Give me engineering."

_"Landry here, what's going on?"_

"Do we have what we need?"

 _"Yes, ready to go, sir."_ She paused for just a second. _"What's...?"_

"Then go. Bridge out."

The terran leaned forward again, fixing Lorca with the same cool gaze.

"I've read about your Federation," he said. "A ship, her crew and their captain, that's your heart and soul."

His face turned vicious. "But you'll never again be that kind of captain. I'll take every legacy you might've had from you."

"You're making a lot of promises today," Lorca said bemusedly. "I will find your spores, I will take your legacy, I will find a lookalike of my dead girlfriend, I will come home, I will, what was it? I will win the war for what's mine? Are you sure you're up to all that? Or are you just going to keep on making empty promises until someone puts you out of your misery?"

Instantly, Lorca realised he had pushed too hard. He could've exploited the other man's fury and grief, but now he had given him the incentive to pull himself together. The terran's expression settled, cold eyes still dark with anger, but the mind behind them ticking in its own familiar rhythm again. A smile tucked unpleasantly at the corners of the terran's mouth.

"It's time to go home," he said and pushed himself away from the captain's chair to take two long strides to the centre of the bridge. He swivelled on his heels, gaze drifting over Lorca slouching in the captain's chair, rested briefly on Michael Burnham, but this time his expression was firmly under his control.

The terran communications officer relayed the information and already they began following some hitherto unknown script, non-essential members of the crew filing out until only a handful remained.

Fresh, Lorca might have been able to take them on, make a mad dash and free Pentawer and the others, it might have been enough to overwhelm them, but he wasn't going to dash anywhere anytime soon.

"Launch the escape pods," the terran captain ordered.

"Done, sir."

Lorca tilted his head at him, listened to the minuscule sound as the pods launched and imagined them float away on their trajectory, broadcasting their emergency signals back to Starfleet. There had been no indication they had ever sent a distress signal, but now Starfleet would be on its way. Too late to render aid, to be sure, but they wreckage would still be hot when they got there.

"Sir," another terran officer said. "There's a problem with the transporter."

The terran captain glared at the officer, with the look of someone fully willing to shoot the messenger if it meant venting his anger.

"What _problem?"_ he asked, irritated because she had made him ask.

"The ship's transporter can't get a lock on our people. We need to beam them out from the transporter room." She looked up, stole a look at the countdown. "There's not enough time for everyone."

"Can we get a lock on from our ship?"

The officer's fingers flew over the consoles, on the view-screen, the seconds trickled down. Lorca hoped it was just as uncomfortable for the terran as it had been for him, knowing his crew was being murdered on a schedule.

"I can't handle all that suspense, Joann," the terran captain said.

"Sorry sir, I'm trying to find a workaround, but I don't know... we could maybe get the transporter on this ship to use the transporter lock function of our ship, but... I need to get down to the transporter room."

The terran spread his arms out, arched his brows.

"Get going then."

She nodded curtly, turned and hurried away.

"Watch 'em run," Lorca chuckled.

The terran turned his attention back to him, pensive now. He said, "Oh, you think you're getting to go down with your ship?"

Lorca gave him a dismissive wave. "There's nothing you can do to me you haven't already done. If you're stupid enough to spare me, I can't stop you."

The terran captain kept his own counsel, looked over the remainder of his bridge crew. He sucked in a breath which might have been rougher than he intended. He said, "Get to the transporter room."

The terrans hurried to the turbo-lift and their captain stalked after them, stiff-legged gait under Lorca's mild, sardonic gaze. Neither man said anything. Threats and insults had all been used up and made no difference to either man's trajectory.

Lorca slouched in the captain's chair, stretched out his damaged leg in front of him in an attempt to ease the pain. The shape of the future writing itself into his consciousness. He still didn't know why this other… him... had come here at all, why he had come here like this. Some war Lorca didn't know or care about when his own war was already lost to him. Still, it was rather enticing, a vision of himself crossing a universe just to get what he wanted.

The turbo-lift hissed closed, the familiar sound like the closing of a coffin lid. For a long moment, the bridge was silent again.

Lorca took a harsh breath of his own.

"Get over here," Lorca ordered, gaze digging into Pentawer's. His first officer hurried over and Lorca unlocked the cuffs, the bright light of the countdown flickering down on them from the view-screen. Freed, Pentawer turned to assist Skelnik while Lorca uncuffed Chaplin.

They stood in front of the captain's chair, looking back at him with faces struggling to find an expression. Exhaustion was there, and fear, an uncertainty at the core of them.

"What are you waiting for?" Lorca snapped. "Break's over. Back to your stations. Let's see what we've got left."

Pentawer took on weapons and tactical, Chaplin despite her injury was taking over navigations, rerouting the helm while Skelnik picked a seat at communications and engineering.

The rundown was as bad as he had expected. Even though they had full control of the ship back, most systems were unresponsive. Their dilithium crystals were almost completely depleted, unsurprisingly, after the terrans had been all over them. They detected more than fifty life-signs, scattered throughout the ship, though the sensors couldn't distinguish between terrans and humans without modification.

He cut in when Chaplin started on life-support.

"I can tell I'm neither floating nor suffocating," he interrupted her. "I need four things."

He gripped the armrest of his seat, disliking the way he had to sit there uselessly.

"One: hold that ship in place. Two: bring us as close to them as possible, ram into them if you can. Three: do we have any weapon capability left?"

"Phaser banks are offline, torpedo bays..." he scrolled through them. "Torpedo bay one, three and four have gone through an emergency shutdown to prevent accidental ignition. I can reboot them, but it'll take too long. Torpedo bay two is still functional. "

"Yes!" Lorca hissed. He closed his hand around the armrests, forced his weight to his good leg and stood up.

"Four: I want to see them."

"On screen now, sir," Skelnik said after a moment and the image of the ISS Buran displaced the countdown to the upper edge of the screen.

With the enhanced image on the screen, the damage to the terran ship looked far more extensive than Lorca had been able to see with the naked eye. One of her four nacelles was clearly too damaged and had been shut down, though the Buran was better equipped to compensate for such an issue than most ships even if it required more processing power to calculate the power distribution.

"Number One," Lorca said. "Do you see where their magic mushroom drive connects to the nacelles? That looks like a weakness to me."

"Agreed, sir," Pentawer said dryly, finding some thin slice of his old humour to put into his tone. "Torpedo launchers are responding sluggishly, it might take some time."

"You have all of two minutes and seventeen seconds left. Light 'em up whenever, commander."

He took a very careful step forward, turned his head and said, "Lieutenant Skelnik, is a ship-wide broadcast possible?"

Skelnik nodded silently, tabbed on the console and said, "Go ahead, sir."

Lorca watched a handful of seconds count down, picking his words slowly. "Everyone, this your captain speaking, but I cannot prove that. By now, you'll have all noticed the red alert and the countdown. We're going to self-destruct in just under two minutes while our enemies try to run away like the cowards they are. You all gave a good accounting of yourself tonight. I'm proud of every single one of you. I want you to know I'm the one honoured to sail with a crew such as you. It's too late for me to make promises to you. But here's where we're at. Right now, our ship has locked onto the enemy ship with tractor beams and we're on a collision course." He arched a questioning brow at Pentawer, who paused in his work to gave a slight, silent nod in confirmation. "And with any luck, just a sliver of it, we'll be blowing their engines to smithereens and take them down with us."

Lorca paused, sighed. "That's all I've got. We'll keep the channel open."

"Aye," Skelnik said.

Lorca's damaged leg and battered body demanded he sit back down, but he didn't move. Barely more than a minute now, there seemed to be no point. His focus shifted away from the crew, even as they issued statements and progress reports. Their professionalism in the face of certain death was both admirable and a transparent attempt at distraction. Having no other options, they had grasped at the straw he had handed them, giving them their routines to cling to, their orders to occupy their hands and minds. It saved them having to consider what would be coming next. He had no such anchor to hold on to and a distant, secret part of him disdained the need for it.

He fixed the strange, familiar ship on the screen instead, tracing the lines of its strange drive installation, the delicate support structure that tied it to the ship itself as if he could feed his instincts of where they needed to hit it directly into the targeting computer and make sure the torpedoes found their mark. It would be the last achievement he could ever have, failure was not an option. They inched closer and closer to this other Buran, too, though they had been well within blast radius from the beginning.

"Torpedoes ready," Pentawer announced, his voice tipping just a little in macabre excitement. He launched them instantly, twenty seconds down on the self-destruct and after the launch confirmation sound, the bridge fell into silence again.

Lorca took a hobbling step toward the view-screen as the bright white lines of the torpedoes appeared in the frame. He watched as the rings on the other ship's drive began to spin-up, listened to Chaplin's announcement of an energy spike in the other ship, her wonderment a strange nostalgia this late in the game.

She said, "I've never seen anything like this."

And she never would again, either.

Lorca took another step, fingers flexing against the pain in his shoulder and aching muscles, willing the torpedoes to go faster, to hit precisely, his farewell salvo.

The countdown hit zero.

There was no delay, no moment in which fate hung in the balance, however imagined it might be. A trick of the mind, perhaps, was all Lorca had, in which he could imagine the flicker of the screen denying him the sight of the torpedoes' impact and the false-mirror reflection of the Buran disintegrating. The explosions rip up from the floor, the controlled and simultaneous overload of all energy lines in the ship, ripping her apart at every seam, flinging the pieces through white-hot fire into the cold brilliance of space.

And among the searing, all-consuming destruction, the cool, gentle caress of the transporter beam devouring him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go.


	5. Epilogue: Snowblind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Expanded Warning to Prevent Further Misunderstanding:** The sex is entirely consensual, but if the "grooming" implication was beyond the pale for you, read at your own discretion. 
> 
> **Author's Note:** Everyone seems to be updating their stories today, so I figured I'd make absolutely extra sure as few people as possible see this update, which just goes to show that I learn absolutely nothing from all these manipulative people I always write about. 
> 
> **Title:** The title is a reference to "Buran", which translates to "snowstorm" from Russian. Read the Wikipedia entry and weep for humanity…

 

The transporter beam picks him apart and slams him into the escape pod with all the subtlety of a gorn pit-fighter going berserk, scrambling his mind, displacing his very sense of self, making him grapple for a memory, something to hold to define himself against. What comes instead washes through him with same relentless cold as outer space.

The Captain's Quarters on the Shenzou are spacious luxury, nothing like the Buran and her spartan functionality. It makes sense and he is far from envious. Michael is the favourite, the daughter, while he is just the lackey, the tool, the weapon. Once or twice, he's been the willing plaything, too. It should rankle his pride, but it doesn't because Philippa has already lost in his mind and that she does not realise it yet makes it all that much sweeter. Michael is everything Philippa has never dared let herself become. And more than that, Michael is his. He's plucked her soul from the wreckage of her parents' burning home and he has shaped her mind in all the years since.

Philippa has just finished her visit, congratulating her daughter on winning a captaincy for herself. Now she commands one of the finest, most distinguished ships in the imperial fleet, a worthy trophy to be taken from a formidable captain. It doesn't change the fact that Philippa is far too late when _he_ is the one who has taught Michael how to win that chair and how to hold on to it. Not long from tonight, some young pretender will seek to make their fortune and fame by laying hands on the emperor's daughter, whether in violence or seduction or both.

He's made her wait for him for more than ten years. Ever since the way she looked at him changed with the onset of puberty. He's noticed and let it feed his pride while keeping her at arms' length. Gleefully, he's watched from a distance as others tried and failed to satisfy her.

When he steps in close behind just inside the captain's quarters and put his hands on her shoulder, there's no wooing he still has to do. Michael makes a low sound of surprise and anticipation and leans into him.

She tilts his head for him, exposes the long line of her neck to his ghosting breath and she mewls in frustration, unable to do anything but suffer his teasing in pleasureable helplessness.

She is in her dress uniform, no metal plating to deter his finger-tips from trailing a hot line up her chest and throat, tracing a finger over her parting lips. Her tongue laps at him, but he slides his hands back down, past the hard edge of the broad belt, finds the familiar clasps on her uniform trousers and slip his hand inside.

He chuckles quietly to himself as she shudders, resettles her feet in an attempt to steady herself and give him more access. Thrilling to think she must have been this wet all the time the Emperor held her speech a mere handful of minutes ago and to realise that today wouldn't have been the first time her body had done this to her in his presence.

He places a gentle kiss on the side of her temple, as he had done when she was a child, enjoying the way the former innocence of the gesture would never return.

He purrs in her ear, "Let's watch the stars."

And pulls his fingers from out of her, steps aside to wrap his arm around her waist to guide her across the room.

A shockwave picks up the pod and hurls it into nothingness, his scattering thoughts caught between the lure of oblivion and distant, painful excitement tethering him just narrowly on this side of consciousness.

She mewls, "Ga- _ah_ -briel…"

He pins her between himself and the window and rakes his grip down her flanks, she's so tense she's vibrating under his touch, so beautifully eager. He meets her gaze over her shoulder in the dark reflection. For a moment, he traces the bold lines of the Charon, just visible at the edge, blocking out the smattering streak-light of the milky way slashing across the view.

The pod continues to shake and tumble powerlessly, its thin layer of shields feebly trying to protect it against the destructive energy washing over it in cascading waves, debris from the destroyed starship shot at it with the ferocity of a particle accelerator. It's cold, he feels it freezing, creeping along his limbs, prickling his skin like a million needles.

Silently, vaguely, he curses Landry and her infatuation. It's served him well, devotion and loyalty coming together in the headiest of combinations. But this time, it's blinded her, tricked her into committing the ultimate transgression: second-guessing a direct order. He remembers screaming into the communicator as he ran through the Buran, already feeling the floor under his feet begin to disintegrate.

He's screaming at her, " _Take him first! Take him FIRST!"_

They weren't done. They were never going to be _done_. He'd keep, but he had to survive first. A worthy foe, at the very least, worthy to be taken apart at his leisure and more thoroughly than anything he has reserved even for Georgiou.

Michael continues to chant his name, a million deifying supplications, all the universe spread out before her, but her existence reduced to the limits of ecstasy her body can hold. He leans over her, close to her ear, bites her neck and whispers to her. No sweet nothings, no cheap innuendos, nothing so trivial for this most exquisite of creatures.

"Look at the Empire," he whispers to her, the rhythm of his breathing in beat with each thrust of his hips, burying himself deep inside her. "I'll take it all. For myself. For you."

Her body begins to spasm helplessly under his onslaught.

A siren shrills sharply and light cuts through his closed eyelids, ripping him away from the memory before he can let himself fall into it and the harsh truth of her loss can cut him to shreds. The escape pod boots its interface, now that the worst of the storm has passed over them.

The computer voice says, "Escape pod functioning normally. Pod occupant suffers elevated heart-rate and erratic breathing pattern, consistent with the onset of a panic attack. Recommend…"

"Fuck you."

"Command unknown, please rephrase."

He groans in annoyance, chasing the memory in the vain and useless hope that it would take him away from this place. He remembers Michael's quarters on the Shenzou and tries to recall the myriad tiny details, summoned from memory in near-perfection.

The way the captain's Quarters smell faintly of electricity and polished metal, a heady mix of vulcan and orionian herbs from her bath. He recalls the low humming of the spaceship around them, the minor difference between her ship and his. It feels heavier against him, slower and bulkier than his Buran. Not able to stand up in combat against him, but solid for a front-line fight. Already he has ideas for what to do with it, where to put her and aim her weapons.

Michael moans his name and he really hopes Philippa has her spies on the ship and that she will learn of this and understand that she has nothing he cannot take. He wants her to be afraid.

Michael's body is slowly overheating as she loses what little control she still has, he feels it in the way her legs shake and threaten to give out so he has to hold her tighter, fuck her harder into the glass and fuck her moans into screams.

* * *

The transporter beam picks him apart slower than normal, working through the interference caused by the exploding ship, the released energy throwing off the calculations and threatening to tear him apart. It's not painful, having anticipated something far worse than the soft, all-encompassing wash of the transporter. His last clear thought, before he's ripped apart in exactly the way he has _not_ wanted, is one of sheer denial, as if it would be enough to just dig his heels in and hold himself together until it was all over. 

Instead, of course, the transporter whisks him away anyway and drops him into a small glass enclosure, standing on his shaky feet, feeling a wave of nausea rush up his throat as a result of the rough transport. It leaves him disoriented, grappling for that last shred of willpower. He'd expected death, welcomed it, even, but if it was not to be, he'd find hat strength and pick himself up.

All he manages, though, in that first moment, is to drop his head against the cool glass and alleviate some of the weight from his damaged leg. He catches a glimpse of his surroundings. It's a large room, dimly lit as the terrans prefer it, filled with neat rows of glass cubicles like the one he's in. At a guess, it is some kind of brig and he is the only occupant.

He's given no more time for either observation or speculation as sudden pain shoots through him. It's not his legs, not the burns and cuts and bruises he's sustained. It's not even the inner anguish he hasn't even had time to fully realise yet. It's like… nothing he's ever felt before. It's just pain, pure and unmitigated by any context of injury or bodily damage. It drowns out all thoughts and concerns, wiping his mind clean and empty. Within an instance, he has no name and personality left, reduced to nothing but a receptacle for absolute, pure agony.

It wrenches a pathetic animal howl from his throat and it never peters out, just goes on and on and on…

All sense of time and its passage is already lost, but when the room falls into blackness and the pain stops mounting, leaving behind just a dull, shuddering ache of his overwhelmed nerve ends, Lorca's mind scrambles together the awareness that it hadn't been _long._ Barely a handful of seconds and despite himself, he puts the pieces together to see if they fit.

Distantly, red alert sirens begin to howl, no different than on his Buran and a moment later, this ship begins to screech and shake, all her pieces threatening to be ripped apart. The first blast of the Buran's destruction hitting her without her shields up. The light flicker back on, but go out almost instantly again, as energy distribution struggles to reroute the power to where it is needed to keep the hull integrity intact.

A second shockwave rocks the ship, this one slightly weaker, followed by the low, dull hail of debris being picked off by newly powered shields.

Lorca lets out a breath he hasn't realised he was holding. It means his Buran is gone, her crew burned and dead, their remains adrift in space soon lost into the infinity of it. And he's still here. Wherever here even is.

Red alert is switched off while the ship still rocks faintly in the aftermath.

He leans his shoulder into the wall and finally allows himself a moment of weakness as he slides down to sit on the metal grill of the floor. He's got quite enough of losing. His entire life, it seems is just a sequence of failure. Fast-tracked to a command, only to fail on Tarsus VI and fail again in hunting down the mass murderer and deliver even the shadow of justice.

He's been given the chance of a captaincy only to fail within the rigged simulation of the Kobayashi Maru. It doesn't _matter_ that he knows it was never a winnable contest, or that he's supposed to learn a valuable lesson from it. Part of him never stopped chafing at the suspicion that a better man would've found a solution. And despite all that, Starfleet had given him the Buran. Only for him to fail yet again.

He was responsible for his crew, he was supposed to steer them safely through the perils and bring them home in one piece. Instead, the best he could've done was burn them to cinders in one great conflagration which, it turns out, might end up meaning nothing at all.

From outside, he hears a computer voice call out. _Black alert._ His perception shifts and wavers, he has no words to describe it and is too tired to try. After that, the ship goes still and quiet, just the normal engine sound.

The lights come back on and he glances up, around the room for the moment it takes the punishing system to boot back up.

He takes a breath and waits, determined. He's got nothing left, so he might as well hold out this time.

It doesn't work and the pain soars through him again. He screams until his throat bleeds and his voice cuts out and his world tilts into miserable oblivion.

* * *

He's planned to leave her after he has taken his pleasure, her fucked-out limbs too heavy to reach and hold him, her mind a buzzing haze of bliss. Somehow, instead, he finds his head resting on her chest and listening to her heartbeat and breathing slowly returning to normal, letting it feed his ego with how long it takes her, but in the end, he finds that too stale to keep his interest. Her bed is huge, cool silky-smooth and soft against his skin where he's not curled flush to her. The truth is, he likes it there, so close to her, just being with her, no agenda and no strings to distract his thoughts. 

She's wrapped an arm around his shoulder, fingertips tracing patterns on his naked form. It takes him a while until he realises she's agitated and tense, something on her mind that she shouldn't even be able to focus on, though she's his special one for a reason.

He nuzzled his face towards her breast, but before he can even do anything there, she moves, shifts her grip and slips out from under him, comes up just enough so she can cup his face with both hands. Her grip is hard, fire in her eyes, close enough to burn him.

"Did you mean that?" she asks.

He arches an eyebrow at her and she says, "What you said. That you'd take the Empire."

He smirks, feels the resistance of her hold on him.

"You doubt me?"

Her fingers dig into his cheeks, pressure on the bones of his jaw. "That's just… it's just fucking, I like it, but it's just talk."

He's started pushing against her, leaning in, gaze fixating on her lips as she speaks, but at her dismissal, his gaze snaps back up to search her face.

"Such trickery is _beneath_ me," he jokes with a leer. Idly contemplating which of the million different ways to satisfy them both he'll explore with her next. The humour and heat sends the trace of a smile over her face, but she blinks it away, unwilling to be so easily swayed.

Her fingers keep digging into the sides of his face. He doesn't know what's bothering her. If any other lover behaved like this, he'd simply kick them out, even if they were in their bedroom. He's come too far and done too much to bother with such foolishness. But her intensity both compels and mesmerises him, the strength in her grip and darkness and fire in her eyes. Delicious enough to let himself fall into it and lap it all up, enjoying her at his leisure.

"I need to know if you meant it," she insists and he realises it matters to her.

"Of course I meant it," he says. Raises a hand to paint a sardonic cross over his chest in affirmation. "Time and space itself."

Instead of soothing her his words made her suck in her breath sharply and shifted her body closer to him.

"For _me_ ," she pleads. "It's got to be for me. Not mother. Her time is over. Say you are with me, not her."

Words or treason, those are, it sends a thrill down his spine like ice-water, almost making him moan at the fantasy of the sensation. Giddy at the thought of the blow this will be to Philippa.

He can do nothing but laugh at Michael's absurd sentiment of him choosing Philippa over Michael or over himself.

"She's on borrowed time," he assures her. "Nothing is ever for her."

He'll take it all for _himself_ , but Michael… his precious little girl who's grown into such a beautiful, vicious woman, she will always have a place with him. The universe wouldn't dare try to come between them, he'll tear it all down if he must, just for her.

He stills in her hands once again, her expression earnest as she searches his face for any sign of deception. Surprised and delighted when she realises there is none for her to find, laid bare as he is for her. For some reason, he doesn't mind to let her read him like this. Her face brightens and she nips forward, places a kiss on his mouth, quick and close-lipped and too chaste, the way the child she once was would have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably should be sorry for the unannounced Lorca switerchoo, but… it came with the territory. 
> 
> As for prime Lorca… The ending in the previous chapter was never meant to be my twist! That was just meant to segue into Drastic Measures, but now you've made me feel guilty so I gave him a little share of the epilogue all his own. I'm sure he's finding the experience positively thrilling…
> 
> Now, I've implied a few times that I might write more, but I really want to stress that I said MIGHT. At this point, I cannot actually make any promises and I want you guys to know that. 
> 
> At any rate, I hope you enjoyed this story at least a little bit!


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